The Authenticity of Prometheus Bound

Discusses how the conditions surrounding the ancient transmission and cataloguing of texts may have led to the ascription of Prometheus Bound to Aeschylus.

Mark Griffith (Author)

9780521038140, Cambridge University Press

Paperback / softback, published 26 July 2007

432 pages
21.5 x 14 x 2.4 cm, 0.556 kg

Prometheus Bound was accepted without question in antiquity as the work of Aeschylus, and most modern authorities endorse this ascription. But since the nineteenth century several leading scholars have come to doubt Aeschylean authorship. Dr Griffith here provides a thorough and wide-ranging study of this problem, and concludes: 'Had Prometheus Bound been newly dug up from the sands of Oxyrhynchus... few scholars would regard it as the work of Aeschylus.' After a preliminary assessment of the external evidence, Dr Griffith examines minutely the idiosyncrasies of metre, dramatic technique, vocabulary, syntax and expression to be found in the play, applying the same tests to other plays of Aeschylus, Sophocles and Euripides in order to provide a control for his methods. In his final chapter he discusses how the conditions surrounding the ancient transmission and cataloguing of texts may have led to the ascription to Aeschylus.

List of tables
Preface
1. The problem
2. External evidence
3. The lyric metres
4. The recitative Anapaests
5. The Iambic trimeters
6. Structure and dramatic technique
7. Staging
8. Vocabulary
9. Style and syntax
10. Alternatives to Aeschylean authorship
Appendixes
Notes
Bibliography
Subject index
Index of Greek words discussed
Index of passages cited.

Subject Areas: Literary studies: classical, early & medieval [DSBB], Plays, playscripts [DD]