Good, the Bad and the Ancient

Sue Matheson is a professor of English at the University College of the North in Manitoba, Canada.

Winner, Ray and Pat Browne Best Edited Collection in Popular and American Culture—Popular Culture Association

• Table of ContentsAcknowledgmentsIntroduction: America and Antiquity: Force and Thumos in the WesternSue MathesonPrologosWest of “Them”: Classical Allusions in Western FilmKirsten DayAristotle and the Wild West: The Western as a Rhetorical DeviceChris YogerstTragic Trails in Indian CountryChorei, ­Satyr-Drama, and the Birth of Tragedy in John Ford’s Cheyenne Autumn (1964)Sue MathesonPeckinpah and the Problem of Catharsis; or: How Well Does The Wild Bunch Fit Aristotle’s Poetics?Martin M. WinklerEuripidean Sunsets: Tragedy, the Western, and Conflicts WithinMaria Cecília de Miranda N. CoelhoCowboys and CatharsisPharmakos and the Bad Citizen Topos in Charles Marquis Warren’s Westerns: Trooper Hook, Tension at Table Rock and Charro!Fernando Gabriel Pagnoni Berns“Scratched blood”: The Erinyes and Anthony Mann’s The FuriesKelly MacPhailThe Splendor of Bart Allison: Antigone and the Tragic Western HeroChristopher MinzHomer on HorsebackHomer’s Odyssey and Cattle Drive WesternsAndrew HoweLonesome Dove: Uva uvam vivendo varia fit and Tragic Elements in a Western EpicBenjamin HufbauerBlondie’s Odyssey: The Homeric Journey and American Mythmaking in The Good, the Bad, and the UglyChristopher J. OlsonWriting and Rewriting History: Myth in the Iliad and Heaven’s GateBrian BremsCatastropheGunsmoke’s Boot Hill and the Classical UnderworldJim DaemsOrpheus on the Frontier: Slow WestCynthia J. MillerInfluence of Classical Literature in Western Film: A Selective BibliographyCamille McCutcheonAbout the ContributorsIndex