Antonis K. Petrides - Böcker

Menander's Dyskolos: Introduction, Edition, and Commentary presents a new critical edition, together with an extensive introduction and commentary, of Dyskolos (The Cantankerous Man)—the only play of Menander (342-290 BC), antiquity's most acclaimed comic playwright, to survive virtually complete. Long lost but miraculously rediscovered in the sands of Egypt, the comedy premiered in Athens in 317/16 BC but only reached modern audiences after its first publication in 1958.At its heart stands Knemon, a reclusive misanthrope in the remote Attic deme of Phyle, whose sour temperament makes life unbearable for those around him, above all his daughter. When the god Pan rewards the girl's piety with a wealthy urban suitor, an inevitable clash unfolds: how can a man who despises all mankind consent to his daughter's marriage with an 'idle' city youth? The play becomes a sophisticated study of character, society, and the fraught interplay of urban and rural life in late classical Athens.Except for works aimed at students or general readers, this is the first full-scale commentary on the play in any language since 1973. A modern and interdisciplinary reimagining of the commentary genre, it combines rigorous philology—textual criticism, metre, language, realia, and stagecraft—with contemporary theoretical perspectives, bringing Dyskolos vividly to life for today's scholars and demonstrating its continuing power to engage, provoke, and delight.

Did Greek tragedy die along with Euripides? This accessible survey demonstrates that this is far from being the case. In it, thirteen eminent specialists offer, for the first time in English, broad coverage of a little-studied but essential part of the history of Greek tragedy. The book contains in-depth discussions of all available textual evidence (including inscriptions and papyri), but also provides historical perspectives on every aspect of the post-fifth-century history of tragedy. Oft-neglected plays, such as Rhesus, Alexandra, and Exagōgē (the only surviving Biblical tragedy), are studied alongside such topics as the expansion of Greek tragedy beyond Athens, theatre performance, music and dance, society and politics, as well as the reception of Greek tragedy in the Second Sophistic and in Late Antiquity, and the importance of ancient scholarship in the transmission of Greek tragic texts.

Did Greek tragedy die along with Euripides? This accessible survey demonstrates that this is far from being the case. In it, thirteen eminent specialists offer, for the first time in English, broad coverage of a little-studied but essential part of the history of Greek tragedy. The book contains in-depth discussions of all available textual evidence (including inscriptions and papyri), but also provides historical perspectives on every aspect of the post-fifth-century history of tragedy. Oft-neglected plays, such as Rhesus, Alexandra, and Exagōgē (the only surviving Biblical tragedy), are studied alongside such topics as the expansion of Greek tragedy beyond Athens, theatre performance, music and dance, society and politics, as well as the reception of Greek tragedy in the Second Sophistic and in Late Antiquity, and the importance of ancient scholarship in the transmission of Greek tragic texts.

This book argues that New Comedy has a far richer performance texture than has previously been recognised. Offering close readings of all the major plays of Menander, it shows how intertextuality - the sustained dialogue of New Comedy performance with the diverse ideological, philosophical, literary and theatrical discourses of contemporary polis culture - is crucial in creating semantic depth and thus offsetting the impression that the plots are simplistic love stories with no political or ideological resonances. It also explores how the visual aspect of the plays ('opsis') is just as important as any verbal means of signification - a phenomenon termed 'intervisuality', examining in particular depth the ways in which the mask can infuse various systems of reference into the play. Masks like the panchrēstos neaniskos (the 'all-perfect youth'), for example, are now full of meaning; thus, with their ideologically marked physiognomies, they can be strong instigators of literary and cultural allusion.