Performance Culture and Athenian Democracy

This 1999 book discusses the ways performance is central to the practice and ideology of Athenian democracy.

Simon Goldhill (Edited by), Robin Osborne (Edited by)

9780521604314, Cambridge University Press

Paperback, published 5 August 2004

432 pages, 5 b/w illus.
22.9 x 15.3 x 2.6 cm, 0.649 kg

'The diversity of the essays as well as the originality, distinction and provocative quality of many of them make this volume a fine contribution to performance studies.' Journal of Hellenic Studies

The specially-commissioned essays in this 1999 book discuss the ways in which performance is central to the practice and ideology of democracy in classical Athens. From theatre to law-court to gymnasium to symposium, performance is a basic part of Athenian society; how do these different areas interrelate and inform the politics and culture of the democratic city? Drama, rhetoric, philosophy, literature and art are all discussed by leading scholars in this interdisciplinary volume.

1. Programme notes Simon Goldhill
Part I. The Performance of Drama: 2. Spreading the word through performance Oliver Taplin
3. The aulos in Athens Peter Wilson
4. Actor's song in tragedy Edith Hall
Part II. The Drama of Performance: 5. Performative aspects of the choral voice in Greek tragedy: civic identity in performance Claude Calame
6. Actors and voices: reading between the lines in Aeschines and Demosthenes Pat Easterling
7. Aristophanes: the performance of Utopia in the Ecclesiazusae Froma Zeitlin
Part III. Rhetoric and Performance: 8. The rhetoric of anti-rhetoric in Athenian oratory Jon Hesk
9. Reading Homer from the rostrum: poems and laws in Aeschines' In Timarchum Andrew Ford
10. Plato and the performance of dialogue Simon Goldhill and Sitta von Reden
Part IV. Ritual and State: Visuality and the Performance of Citizenship: 11. Processional performance and the democratic polis Athena Kavoulaki
12. The spectacular and the obscure in Athenian religion Michael H. Jameson
13. Inscribing performance Robin Osborne
14. Publicity and performance: kalos inscriptions in Attic vase-painting François Lissarrague.

Subject Areas: Political structures: democracy [JPHV], Political science & theory [JPA], History of ideas [JFCX], General & world history [HBG]