Hall, Edith
Inventing the Barbarian

Greek Self-definition Through Tragedy.

The aim of the treatise is to explain the singular fascination ancient Greek tragedians felt for the non-Greek, "barbaric" world. - Incest, polygamy, murder, sacrilege, impalement, castration, female power, and despotism: these are some of the images by which the Greek tragedians defined the non-Greek, `barbarian' world. This book explains the reasons behind their singular fascination with barbarians. It sets the plays against the historical background of the Panhellenic wars against Persia and the establishment of an Athenian empire based on democracy and slavery. Contemporary anthropology and political philosophy is discussed, revealing how the poets conceptualized the barbarian as the negative embodiment of Athenian civic ideals. By comparing the treatment of foreigners in Homer and tragedy, it shows that the new dimension which the idea of the barbarian had brought to the tragic theatre radically affected the past, and enriched the tragedians' repertoire of aural and visual effects. The invented barbarian of the tragic stage was a powerful cultural expression of Greek xenophobia and chauvinism, but, paradoxically, produced an outburst of creative energy and literary innovation. - Edith Hall sets Greek drama against the historical background of the Panhellenic wars with Persia and the establishment of an Athenian empire based on democracy and slavery. The plays are also set in the context of contemporary anthropology and political philosophy, thus revealing how the poets conceptualized the barbarian as the negative embodiment of Athenian civic ideals. By comparing the treatment of foreigners in Homer and tragedy, the author explains how the new dimension which the idea of the barbarian brought to the Greek tragic theatre radically affected the poets' interpretation of myth and their evocation of the distant past. XVI,277 Seiten, gebunden (Oxford Classical Monographs/Clarendon Press/Oxford University Press 1989) textsauberes Exemplar mit leichten Gebrauchsspuren, berieben mit leichter Randlädierung/clean text pages, minor traces of use, rubbed with slight damage to the edge