Female Acts in Greek Tragedy (Martin Classical Lectures #15)

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Synopsis
Although Classical Athenian ideology did not permit women to exercise legal, economic, and social autonomy, the tragedies of Aeschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides often represent them as influential social and moral forces in their own right. Scholars have struggled to explain this seeming contradiction. Helene Foley shows how Greek tragedy uses gender relations to explore specific issues in the development of the social, political, and intellectual life in the polis. She investigates three central and problematic areas in which tragic heroines act independently of men: death ritual and lamentation, marriage, and the making of significant ethical choices. Her anthropological approach, together with her literary analysis, allows for an unusually rich context in which to understand gender relations in ancient Greece. This book examines, for example, the tragic response to legislation regulating family life that may have begun as early as the sixth century. It also draws upon contemporary studies of virtue ethics and upon feminist reconsiderations of the Western ethical tradition. Foley maintains that by viewing public issues through the lens of the family, tragedy asks whether public and private morality can operate on the same terms. Moreover, the plays use women to represent significant moral alternatives. Tragedy thus exploits, reinforces, and questions cultural clichés about women and gender in a fashion that resonates with contemporary Athenian social and political issues.
Copyright:
2001

Book Details

Book Quality:
Publisher Quality
Book Size:
424 Pages
ISBN-13:
9781400824731
Related ISBNs:
9781400814251
Publisher:
Princeton University Press
Date of Addition:
Copyrighted By:
Princeton University Press
Adult content:
No
Language:
English
Has Image Descriptions:
No
Categories:
History, Literature and Fiction, Drama, Plays and Theater, Language Arts
Submitted By:
Bookshare Staff
Usage Restrictions:
This is a copyrighted book.

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