Paracomedy

Paracomedy
Author: Craig Jendza
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Total Pages: 240
Release: 2020-04-07
Genre: Drama
ISBN: 0190090952

Paracomedy: Appropriations of Comedy in Greek Drama is the first book that examines how ancient Greek tragedy engages with the genre of comedy. While scholars frequently study paratragedy (how Greek comedians satirize tragedy), this book investigates the previously overlooked practice of paracomedy: how Greek tragedians regularly appropriate elements from comedy such as costumes, scenes, language, characters, or plots. Drawing upon a wide variety of complete and fragmentary tragedies and comedies (Aeschylus, Sophocles, Euripides, Aristophanes, Rhinthon), this monograph demonstrates that paracomedy was a prominent feature of Greek tragedy. Blending a variety of interdisciplinary approaches including traditional philology, literary criticism, genre theory, and performance studies, this book offers innovative close readings and incisive interpretations of individual plays. Jendza presents paracomedy as a multivalent authorial strategy: some instances impart a sense of ugliness or discomfort; others provide a sense of light-heartedness or humor. While this work traces the development of paracomedy over several hundred years, it focuses on a handful of Euripidean tragedies at the end of the fifth century BCE. Jendza argues that Euripides was participating in a rivalry with the comedian Aristophanes and often used paracomedy to demonstrate the poetic supremacy of tragedy; indeed, some of Euripides' most complex uses of paracomedy attempt to re-appropriate Aristophanes' mockery of his theatrical techniques. Paracomedy: Appropriations of Comedy in Greek Tragedy theorizes a new, ground-breaking relationship between Greek tragedy and comedy that not only redefines our understanding of the genre of tragedy, but also reveals a dynamic theatrical world filled with mutual cross-generic influence.

Euripidean Paracomedy

Euripidean Paracomedy
Author: Craig Timothy Jendza
Publisher:
Total Pages:
Release: 2013
Genre:
ISBN:

Abstract: This dissertation explores the relationships between the dramatic genres of Greek comedy, tragedy and satyr drama in the 5th century BCE. I propose that Athenian tragedians had the freedom to appropriate elements and tropes drawn from comedy into their plays, a process that I call paracomedy. While most scholars do not admit the possibility of paracomedy, I suggest that frequent examples of paracomedy exist in all three major tragedians (Aeschylus, Sophocles and Euripides), and I provide numerous examples of paratragedy and paracomedy between Euripides and Aristophanes. In Chapter 1, I demonstrate the extent of paracomedy in tragedy, explore the theoretical background behind these appropriations of genre, and provide a methodology for determining paracomedy based on distinctive correspondences, the priority of the comedic element, and the motivation for adopting features from outside the genre. In Chapter 2, I explore the rivalry between Euripides and Aristophanes concerning plots involving "sword-bearing" and "razor-bearing men", arguing that Aristophanes parodied the "sword-bearing men" escape plot in Euripides' Helen by staging a "razor-bearing man" escape plot in Thesmophoriazusae, and that Euripides responded to this parody by increasing the amount of "sword-bearing men" in his subsequent play Orestes. In Chapter 3, I suggest that the parodos to Euripides' Orestes is modeled on the parodos of Aristophanes' Peace, due to the adoption of the comedic element "varying levels of choral volume in a madness scene". Furthermore, I analyze the evidence from satyr drama, ultimately proposing the possibility of a two-pronged response to Aristophanes in 408 BCE in Euripides' Orestes and Cyclops. In Chapter 4, I analyze the tragedic and comedic traditions of hostage scenes developing from Euripides' Telephus, arguing that in Thesmophoriazusae, Aristophanes innovated the addition of an incineration plot to the hostage scene tradition, which Euripides subsequently adopted into the hostage scene at the conclusion of Orestes. In Chapter 5, I treat the paratragedic and paracomedic use of costume dealing with rags and cross-dressing, proposing a back-and-forth rivalry between Aristophanes' Acharnians, Euripides' Helen, Aristophanes' Thesmophoriazusae, and Euripides' Bacchae.

The Structure and Performance of Euripides' Helen

The Structure and Performance of Euripides' Helen
Author: C. W. Marshall
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Total Pages: 337
Release: 2014-12-04
Genre: Drama
ISBN: 1316195279

Using Euripides' play Helen as the main point of reference, C. W. Marshall's detailed study expands our understanding of Athenian tragedy and provides new interpretations of how Euripides created meaning in performance. Marshall focuses on dramatic structure to show how assumptions held by the ancient audience shaped meaning in Helen and to demonstrate how Euripides' play draws extensively on the satyr play Proteus, which was part of Aeschylus' Oresteia. Structure is presented not as a theoretical abstraction, but as a crucial component of the experience of performance, working with music, the chorus and the other plays in the tetralogy. Euripides' Andromeda in particular is shown to have resonances with Helen not previously described. Arguing that the role of the director is key, Marshall shows that the choices that a director can make about role doubling, gestures, blocking, humour, and masks play a crucial part in forming the meaning of Helen.

Brill's Companion to Euripides (2 vols)

Brill's Companion to Euripides (2 vols)
Author: Andreas Markantonatos
Publisher: BRILL
Total Pages: 1227
Release: 2020-08-31
Genre: History
ISBN: 9004435352

Brill’s Companion to Euripides, as well as presenting a comprehensive and authoritative guide to understanding Euripides and his masterworks, provides scholars and students with compelling fresh perspectives upon a broad range of issues in the field of Euripidean studies.

The Play of Texts and Fragments

The Play of Texts and Fragments
Author: J. Robert C. Cousland
Publisher: BRILL
Total Pages: 595
Release: 2009
Genre: Literary Criticism
ISBN: 9004174737

This volume is arguably one of the most important studies of Euripides to appear in the last decade. Not only does it offer incisive examinations of many of Euripides' extant plays and their influence, it also includes seminal examinations of a number of Euripides fragmentary plays. This approach represents a novel and exciting development in Euripidean studies, since it is only very recently that the fragmentary plays have begun to appear in reliable and readily accessible editions. The book s thirty-two contributors constitute an international "who s who" of Euripidean studies and Athenian drama, and their contributions will certainly feature in the forefront of scholarly discourse on Euripides and Greek drama for years to come.

Heracles and Euripidean Tragedy

Heracles and Euripidean Tragedy
Author: Thalia Papadopoulou
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Total Pages: 260
Release: 2005-07-14
Genre: History
ISBN: 9781139446679

Euripides' Heracles is an extraordinary play of great complexity, exploring the co-existence of both positive and negative aspects of the eponymous hero. Euripides treats Heracles' ambivalence by showing his uncertain position after the completion of his labours and turns him into a tragic hero by dramatizing his development from the invincible hero of the labours to the courageous bearer of suffering. This book offers a comprehensive reading of Heracles examining it in the contexts of Euripidean dramaturgy, Greek drama and fifth-century Athenian society. It shows that the play, which raises profound questions on divinity and human values, deserves to have a prominent place in every discussion about Euripides and about Greek tragedy. Tracing some of Euripides' most spectacular writing in terms of emotional and intellectual effect, and discussing questions of narrative, rhetoric, stagecraft and audience reception, this work is required reading for all students and scholars of Euripides.

The Gentle, Jealous God

The Gentle, Jealous God
Author: Simon Perris
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
Total Pages: 256
Release: 2016-10-06
Genre: Literary Criticism
ISBN: 1472513010

Euripides' Bacchae is the magnum opus of the ancient world's most popular dramatist and the most modern, perhaps postmodern, of Greek tragedies. Twentieth-century poets and playwrights have often turned their hand to Bacchae, leaving the play with an especially rich and varied translation history. It has also been subjected to several fashions of criticism and interpretation over the years, all reflected in, influencing, and influenced by translation. The Gentle, Jealous God introduces the play and surveys its wider reception; examines a selection of English translations from the early 20th century to the early 21st, setting them in their social, intellectual, and cultural context; and argues, finally, that Dionysus and Bacchae remain potent cultural symbols even now. Simon Perris presents a fascinating cultural history of one of world theatre's landmark classics. He explores the reception of Dionysus, Bacchae, and the classical ideal in a violent and turmoil-ridden era. And he demonstrates by example that translation matters, or should matter, to readers, writers, actors, directors, students, and scholars of ancient drama.

Greek Drama V

Greek Drama V
Author: Hallie Marshall
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
Total Pages: 277
Release: 2020-02-06
Genre: Drama
ISBN: 1350142379

Drawing together new research from emerging and senior scholars, this selection of papers from the decennial Greek Drama V conference (Vancouver, 2017) explores the works of the ancient Greek playwrights and showcases new methodologies with which to study them. Sixteen chapters from a field of international contributors examine a range of topics, from the politics of the ancient theatre, to the role of the chorus, to the earliest history of the reception of Aeschylus' Oresteia. Employing anthropological, historical, and psychological critical methods alongside performance analysis and textual criticism, these studies bring fresh and original interpretations to the plays. Several contributions analyse fragmentary tragedies, while others incorporate ideas on the performance aspect of certain plays. The final chapters deal separately with comedy, naturally focusing on the plays of Aristophanes and Menander. Greek Drama V offers a window into where the academic field of Greek drama is now, and points towards the future scholarship it will produce.

Brill’s Companion to the Reception of Aristophanes

Brill’s Companion to the Reception of Aristophanes
Author:
Publisher: BRILL
Total Pages: 451
Release: 2016-08-01
Genre: Literary Criticism
ISBN: 9004324658

Brill’s Companion to the Reception of Aristophanes provides a substantive account of the reception of Aristophanes (c. 446-386 BC) from Antiquity to the present. Aristophanes was the renowned master of Old Attic Comedy, a dramatic genre defined by its topical satire, high poetry, frank speech, and obscenity. Since their initial production in classical Athens, his comedies have fascinated, inspired, and repelled critics, readers, translators, and performers. The book includes seventeen chapters that explore the ways in which the plays of Aristophanes have been understood, appropriated, adapted, translated, taught, and staged. Careful attention has been given to critical moments of reception across temporal, linguistic, cultural, and national boundaries.