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The Classical Greek sophists – Protagoras, Gorgias, Prodicus,
Hippias, and Antiphon, among others – are some of the most
important figures in the flourishing of linguistic, historical, and
philosophical reflection at the time of Socrates. They are also
some of the most controversial: what makes the sophists
distinctive, and what they contributed to fifth-century
intellectual culture, has been hotly debated since the time of
Plato. They have often been derided as reactionaries, relativists
or cynically superficial thinkers, or as mere opportunists, making
money from wealthy democrats eager for public repute. This volume
takes a fresh perspective on the sophists – who really counted as
one; how distinctive they were; and what kind of sense later
thinkers made of them. In three sections, contributors address the
sophists' predecessors and historical and professional context;
their major intellectual themes, including language, ethics,
society, and religion; and their reception from the fourth century
BCE to modernity.
This Norton Critical Edition includes: Oliver Taplin's new
translation of the fifth-century B.C.E. Greek tragedy-a trilogy of
revenge and murder within the royal family of Argos-with
explanatory annotations by the editors, ancient backgrounds and
responses from Homer, Stesichorus, Pindar, Euripides and Sophocles,
fourteen wide-ranging critical essays on the Oresteia, from G. W.
F. Hegel and Friedrich Nietzsche to Oliver Taplin and Peter Wilson,
a Glossary of Technical Terms and Proper Names and a Selected
Bibliography.
The Classical Greek sophists – Protagoras, Gorgias, Prodicus,
Hippias, and Antiphon, among others – are some of the most
important figures in the flourishing of linguistic, historical, and
philosophical reflection at the time of Socrates. They are also
some of the most controversial: what makes the sophists
distinctive, and what they contributed to fifth-century
intellectual culture, has been hotly debated since the time of
Plato. They have often been derided as reactionaries, relativists
or cynically superficial thinkers, or as mere opportunists, making
money from wealthy democrats eager for public repute. This volume
takes a fresh perspective on the sophists – who really counted as
one; how distinctive they were; and what kind of sense later
thinkers made of them. In three sections, contributors address the
sophists' predecessors and historical and professional context;
their major intellectual themes, including language, ethics,
society, and religion; and their reception from the fourth century
BCE to modernity.
A bold new reconception of ancient Greek drama as a mode of
philosophical thinking The Philosophical Stage offers an innovative
approach to ancient Greek literature and thought that places drama
at the heart of intellectual history. Drawing on evidence from
tragedy and comedy, Joshua Billings shines new light on the
development of early Greek philosophy, arguing that drama is our
best source for understanding the intellectual culture of classical
Athens. In this incisive book, Billings recasts classical Greek
intellectual history as a conversation across discourses and
demonstrates the significance of dramatic reflections on widely
shared theoretical questions. He argues that neither "literature"
nor "philosophy" was a defined category in the fifth century BCE,
and develops a method of reading dramatic form as a structured
investigation of issues at the heart of the emerging discipline of
philosophy. A breathtaking work of intellectual history by one of
today's most original classical scholars, The Philosophical Stage
presents a novel approach to ancient drama and sets a path for a
renewed understanding of early Greek thought.
From around 1800, particularly in Germany, Greek tragedy has been
privileged in popular and scholarly discourse for its relation to
apparently timeless metaphysical, existential, ethical, aesthetic,
and psychological questions. As a major concern of modern
philosophy, it has fascinated thinkers including Hegel,
Kierkegaard, Nietzsche, Freud, and Heidegger. Such theories have
arguably had a more profound influence on modern understanding of
the genre than works of classical scholarship or theatrical
performances. Tragedy and the Idea of Modernity considers this
tradition of philosophy in relation to the ancient Greek works
themselves, and mediates between the concerns of classicists and
those of intellectual historians and philosophers. The volume is
organized into sections treating issues of poetics, politics and
culture, and canonicity, and contributions by an interdisciplinary
range of scholars consider themes of catharsis, the sublime,
politics, and reconciliation, spanning 2,500 years of literature
and philosophy. Although firmly anchored in the classical
tradition, the volume suggests that the tradition of philosophical
thought concerning tragedy has a major place in understandings both
of ancient tragedy and of modernity itself.
Choruses, Ancient and Modern examines the ancient Greek chorus and
its afterlives in western culture. Choruses, though absolutely
central to the social, political, and religious life of classical
Greece, no longer hold the same broad importance in modernity, yet
the attraction of the Greek chorus has proved a strong impetus to
reimagining. Artists and thinkers have continually appropriated
Greek choruses to their own ends, and the body of these engagements
constitutes a rich and hitherto-unexplored area of the reception of
classical antiquity. Exploring the choral tradition from archaic
Greece to the present across a variety of different media, the
volume thematically juxtaposes perspectives on choruses to create a
dialogue between ancient and modern contexts. Following a
substantial introduction, the four sections of the book discuss the
place of the chorus within scholarship, aesthetic and philosophical
perspectives on the chorus, reflections on absences of the chorus,
and the social and communal potential of the chorus. Each section
considers antiquity and modernity in counterpoint, at once
de-familiarizing ancient contexts of the chorus and defining
crucial moments in modern choral traditions.
Why did Greek tragedy and "the tragic" come to be seen as essential
to conceptions of modernity? And how has this belief affected
modern understandings of Greek drama? In Genealogy of the Tragic,
Joshua Billings answers these and related questions by tracing the
emergence of the modern theory of the tragic, which was first
developed around 1800 by thinkers associated with German Idealism.
The book argues that the idea of the tragic arose in response to a
new consciousness of history in the late eighteenth century, which
spurred theorists to see Greek tragedy as both a unique,
historically remote form and a timeless literary genre full of
meaning for the present. The book offers a new interpretation of
the theories of Schiller, Schelling, Hegel, Holderlin, and others,
as mediations between these historicizing and universalizing
impulses, and shows the roots of their approaches in earlier
discussions of Greek tragedy in Germany, France, and England. By
examining eighteenth-century readings of tragedy and the
interactions between idealist thinkers in detail, Genealogy of the
Tragic offers the most comprehensive historical account of the
tragic to date, as well as the fullest explanation of why and how
the idea was used to make sense of modernity. The book argues that
idealist theories remain fundamental to contemporary
interpretations of Greek tragedy, and calls for a renewed
engagement with philosophical questions in criticism of tragedy.
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