Tragedy and Athenian ReligionStemming from Harvard University's Carl Newell Jackson Lectures, Christiane Sourvinou-Inwood's Tragedy and Athenian Religion sets out a radical reexamination of the relationship between Greek tragedy and religion. Based on a reconstruction of the context in which tragedy was generated as a ritual performance during the festival of the City Dionysia, Sourvinou-Inwood shows that religious exploration had been crucial in the emergence of what developed into fifth-century Greek tragedy. A contextual analysis of the perceptions of fifth-century Athenians suggests that the ritual elements clustered in the tragedies of Euripides, Aeschylus, and Sophocles provided a framework for the exploration of religious issues, in a context perceived to be part of a polis ritual. This reassessment of Athenian tragedy is based both on a reconstruction of the Dionysia and the various stages of its development and on a deep textual analysis of fifth-century tragedians. By examining the relationship between fifth-century tragedies and performative context, Tragedy and Athenian Religion presents a groundbreaking view of tragedy as a discourse that explored (among other topics) the problematic religious issues of the time and so ultimately strengthened Athenian religion even at a time of crisis in very complex ways-- rather than, as some simpler modern readings argue, challenging and attacking religion and the gods. |
Contents
Tragedy Audiences and Religion | 1 |
Setting Out the Distances Religion Audiences and the World of Tragedy | 15 |
Euripides Erechtheus and Iphigeneia in Tauris | 25 |
Aeschylus Aitnaiai and Euripides Archelaos | 40 |
v Preferred Setting and Religious Exploration Universality and its Construction | 45 |
vi Ritual Context Tragic Performance and Permeability | 50 |
The Ritual Context | 67 |
Xenismos of Dionysos Komos Procession Sacrifices and Performances | 69 |
vi The Skene in the Oresteia | 246 |
Aeschylean Tragedy and Religion | 250 |
From Phrynichos to Euripides The Tragic Choruses | 265 |
Euripidean Tragedy and Religious Exploration | 291 |
Atheism and Aristophanes | 294 |
3 Modern Criticism and Ancient Audiences | 297 |
Part One | 301 |
2 Medea | 308 |
b Iconographical Evidence | 82 |
c A Set of Conclusions | 89 |
e Another Set of Conclusions | 98 |
A Summary | 99 |
The Early History of the Great Dionysia | 100 |
City Dionysia Anthesteria and Other Festivals | 104 |
c Reconstructing the Early Festival | 106 |
A Summary | 118 |
Lenaia and Lenaion | 120 |
Reconstructing the Beginnings | 141 |
b Singing at the Sacrifice | 145 |
Mythological Content and Problematization | 149 |
Some Reconstructions | 154 |
Some Possible Scenarios | 157 |
f Ritual and Skene | 160 |
The Question of Mimesis | 162 |
h Thespis and Another Poet | 168 |
i Fissions and Enlargements The Satyr Play | 170 |
j Epilogue | 172 |
iii Men and Women at the Dionysia | 177 |
The Great Dionysia and the Ritual Matrix of Tragedy | 197 |
Religion and the FifthCentury Tragedians | 201 |
ii Suppliants | 203 |
iii Persai | 220 |
iv Septem | 227 |
v Oresteia | 231 |
3 Suppliants | 310 |
Some Remarks | 316 |
Part Two | 317 |
2 Herakleidai | 322 |
3 Hippolytos | 326 |
4 Andromache | 332 |
5 Hecabe | 339 |
6 Electra | 345 |
7 Troades | 350 |
8 Heracles | 361 |
9 Phoinissai | 377 |
10 Orestes | 386 |
11 Ion Helen Bacchae Iphigeneia at Aulis | 402 |
Differences Patterns and Meanings | 403 |
Other Views on Orestes a Brief Critique | 410 |
Euripidean Endings Strategies of Closure and Ancient Audiences | 414 |
Walking among Mortals? Modalities of Divine Appearance in Aeschylus Sophocles and Euripides | 459 |
ii Aeschylus | 462 |
iii Euripides | 469 |
iv Sophocles | 482 |
Shifts Constants and Meanings | 489 |
A Summary of the Central Conclusion | 513 |
| 519 | |
| 543 | |
About the Author | |
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Common terms and phrases
Aeschylean tragedies Aeschylus Agora altar ancient audience Anthesteria Apollo argued Artemis articulated assumptions Athenian Athens audience's choral chorus City Dionysia comedy complex context cult cultic culturally determined Danaids Dareios deities Delphic Dionysos discourse discussed distance dithyramb divine appearances dramatic Electra elements epiphany Erinyes eschara Eteokles Eumenides Euripidean tragedies Euripides evoked fact festival fifth-century goddess Greek Hecabe Henrichs Heracles heroic Hestia Hippolytos human sacrifice hymns hypokrites images important interaction involved Iphigeneia Iphigeneia in Tauris ithyphalloi Ixion komos Mastronarde 1994 modality mortals myth Neoptolemos notion Oidipous oracle Oresteia Orestes Panathenaia parameters perceived perception performance Persai persona play polis present prophecy prototragedy prytaneion reality reconstruction references relationship religion religious dimension religious exploration religious problematization rite ritual dining ritual matrix role sanctuary satyr satyr play schema schemata significant skene Sophocles Sourvinou-Inwood stasimon statue stibades suggest Suppliants supplication theater tion tragic tragos TrGF Twelve Gods vase women Zeitlin Zeus zoomed
Popular passages
Page 519 - Burkert (1979) W. Burkert, Structure and History in Greek Mythology and Ritual (Berkeley, Los Angeles, London 1979).
References to this book
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