The Tangled Ways of Zeus is a collection of studies written over the last twenty years by the distinguished classicist Alan Sommerstein about various aspects of ancient Greek tragedy (and, in some cases, other related genres). It complements his recent collection of studies in Greek comedy, Talking about Laughter (OUP, 2009). Some of the essays have not been published previously, others have appeared in books or journals hard to find outside major academic libraries. Each chapter deals with its own topic, but between them they build up a multifaceted picture of the dramatists (especially Aeschylus and Sophocles), the genre, and its interactions with the society, culture, and religion of classical Athens.
Author(s): Alan H. Sommerstein
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
Year: 2010
Language: English
Pages: 353
Contents......Page 8
Abbreviations......Page 10
Introduction......Page 12
1. The titles of Greek dramas......Page 22
2. Violence in Greek drama......Page 41
3. Adolescence, ephebeia, and Athenian drama......Page 58
4. Sherlockismus and the study of fragmentary tragedies......Page 72
5. The seniority of Polyneikes in Aeschylus’ Seven......Page 93
6. The beginning and the end of Aeschylus’ Danaid trilogy......Page 100
7. The theatre audience, the Demos, and the Suppliants of Aeschylus......Page 129
8. Sleeping safe in our beds: stasis, assassination, and the Oresteia......Page 154
9. The tangled ways of Zeus......Page 175
10. The omen of Aulis or the omen of Argos?......Page 182
11. Pathos and mathos before Zeus......Page 189
12. Oresteia Act II: two misconceptions......Page 200
13. Aeschylus’ epitaph......Page 206
14. Dearest Haimon......Page 213
15. ‘They all knew how it was going to end’: tragedy, myth, and the spectator......Page 220
16. Alternative scenarios in Sophocles’ Electra......Page 235
17. Sophocles’ Palamedes and Nauplius plays: no trilogy here......Page 261
18. ‘The rugged Pyrrhus’: the son of Achilles in tragedy......Page 270
19. What ought the Thebans to have done?......Page 288
References......Page 299
Index locorum......Page 318
A......Page 342
C......Page 344
D......Page 345
E......Page 346
H......Page 347
M......Page 348
P......Page 349
S......Page 350
T......Page 351
Z......Page 352
