Imagining Reperformance in Ancient Culture
Studies in the Traditions of Drama and Lyric

A theoretically informed, up-to-date study of the idea and practice of reperformance in ancient poetry.

Richard Hunter (Edited by), Anna Uhlig (Edited by)

9781316607473, Cambridge University Press

Paperback / softback, published 19 August 2021

351 pages, 7 b/w illus.
24.4 x 16.8 x 1.8 cm, 0.607 kg

This book offers a series of studies of the idea and practice of reperformance as it affects ancient lyric poetry and drama. Special attention is paid to the range of phenomena which fall under the heading 'reperformance', to how poets use both the reality and the 'imaginary' of reperformance to create a deep temporal sense in their work and to how audiences use their knowledge of reperformance conditions to interpret what they see and hear. The studies range in scope from Pindar and fifth-century tragedy and comedy to the choral performances and reconstructions of the Imperial Age. All chapters are informed by recent developments in performance studies, and all Greek and Latin is translated.

Introduction: what is reperformance? Richard Hunter and Anna Uhlig
Part I. Interpretive Frames: 1. Archives, repertoires, bodies and bones: thoughts on reperformance for classicists Johanna Hanink
2. Performance, reperformance, preperformance: the paradox of repeating the unique in Pindaric epinician and beyond Felix Budelmann
3. Thebes on stage, on site, and in the flesh Greta Hawes
Part II. Imagining Iteration: 4. Reperformance, exile, and archive feelings: rereading Aristophanes' Acharnians and Sophocles' Oedipus at Colonus Mario Telò
5. Models of reperformance in Bacchylides Anna Uhlig
6. Mimêsis, mortality and reperformance: the dead among the living in Hecuba and Hamlet Karen Bassi
7. Double act: reperforming history in the Octavia Erica Bexley
Part III. Texts and Contexts: 8. Festival, symposium and epinician (re)performance: the case of Nemean 4 and others Bruno Currie
9. Comedy and reperformance Richard Hunter
10. Performance, transmission and the loss of Hellenistic lyric poetry Giambattista D'Alessio
11. Reperformance and embodied knowledge in Roman pantomime Ruth Webb
Reflections: Is this reperformance? Simon Goldhill.

Subject Areas: Classical history / classical civilisation [HBLA1], Literary studies: poetry & poets [DSC], Literature: history & criticism [DS], Theatre studies [AN]