| Telling Tragedy: Narrative Technique in Aeschylus, Sophocles and Euripides Contributor(s): Goward, Barbara (Author) |
|
 |
ISBN: 0715631764 ISBN-13: 9780715631768 Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing PLC OUR PRICE: $39.55 Product Type: Paperback Published: February 2004 Annotation: Greek tragedy stages stories -- ones already familiar to their original audiences. Using recent narrative theory, this book explores the narrative strategies that sustain the complex relationship between the tragic poet and his sophisticated audience. It discusses how Aeschylus typically shaped these sprawling stories into dramatic form. Then, once established, how these patterns were successively adapted, subverted, capped or ignored by Sophocles and Euripides in the annual attempt to recreate suspense and express fresh meanings relevant to the difficult last decades of the fifth century. Tragedy's intrinsic potent mix of alternating narrative and dramatic elements is found to be fertile ground for bold narrative experimentation and for the creation of a whole range of powerful effects. The first part of the book discusses the relation of narrative theory to tradegy; its typical use of different time frames which counterpoint dreams and oracles with message narrative; and the manifold use, particularly in Sophocles, of narrative deceits. In the remaining three parts the narrative strategies of each playwright are discussed, first generally, and then using details from selected plays. |
| Additional Information |
| BISAC Categories: - Literary Criticism | Ancient And Classical - Literary Collections | Ancient, Classical & Medieval |
| Dewey: 882.010 |
| Physical Information: 0.68" H x 6.22" W x 9.26" (0.79 lbs) 224 pages |
| Themes: - Chronological Period - Ancient (To 499 A.D.) |
| Descriptions, Reviews, Etc. |
| Publisher Description: Using recent narrative theory, this book explores the narrative strategies that sustain the complex relationship between the tragic poet and his sophisticated audience. It discusses how these sprawling stories were typically shaped by Aeschylus into dramatic form; and, once established, how these patterns were successively adapted, subverted, capped or ignored by Sophocles and Euripides in the annual attempt to recreate suspense and express fresh meanings relevant to the difficult last decades of the fifth century. |
Contributor Bio(s): Goward, Barbara: - Barbara Goward teaches Greek and Latin at the City Literary Institute, London. She is the author of Telling Tragedy: Narrative Technique in Aeschylus, Sophocies and Euripides, published by Duckworth, and of the new Introduction to Trachiniae in the Bristol Classical Press reissue of R.C. Jebb's Sophocies: Plays (2004). |