This dissertation investigates speech, silence, and power in the Tereus, Procne, and Philomela myth in four sources: Sophocles’ Tereus , Aristophanes’ Birds, Ovid’s Metamorphoses, and the Pervigilium ...Veneris. I pose three questions about each work: 1. Whom does the author allow to speak, and whom does he silence? 2. How do speech and silence influence characterization, authority, and power? 3. How does the author’s socio-cultural environment influence the construction of those power hierarchies? Each author constructs a hierarchy of agency determined by communicative and silent roles. Sophocles’ Procne, Aristophanes’ Tereus, Ovid’s Philomela and Procne, and the Pervigilium’s Venus and swallow possess a heightened level of narrative agency that cannot be taken away, even if the ability to speak disappears; on the other hand, conspicuous silencing by the author reduces the narrative agency of characters like Aristophanes’ Procne, Ovid’s Tereus, or the Pervigilium’s narrator. These authorial decisions regarding speech and silence evince shifting engagements with each author’s socio-cultural environment and opportunities for artistic output. Moreover, these four authors also engage in an escalating series of mythic reversals and re-appropriations as they mold the details of the Tereus, Procne, and Philomela story into their narratives. First, Aristophanes reverses Sophocles’ empowerment of Procne and Philomela by effacing the violence of Sophocles’ tragedy; he mutes and objectifies Procne, erases Philomela entirely, and elevates Tereus into the bird-man-ruler paradigm that Peisetaerus hopes to emulate, thereby presenting a normative relationship of vocal man with silent woman in service of the movement of his plot. Then, in Augustan Rome, Ovid comments on the princeps’ increasing control over artistic output by acting as an arbiter of speech and silence, as he affords Philomela and Procne eloquent voices while conspicuously silencing Tereus; he “corrects” the Aristophanic “correction” of Sophocles. Finally, in Late Antiquity, the narrator of the Pervigilium laments his silence caused by constraints within panegyric, a genre that lacks a personal voice, such as that possessed by the swallow. He “corrects” Ovid’s presentation of the swallow’s song as the result of Philomela’s brutalization by casting it as a positive exemplum for his own poetry.
In this thesis, I explore the gap between persistent literary reference to the gynaeconitis, or “women’s quarters,” and its elusive presence in the archaeological record, seeking to understand why it ...survived as a conceptual space in Roman literature several centuries after it supposedly existed as a physical space in fifth and fourth-century Greek homes. I begin my study by considering the origins of the gynaeconitis as a literary motif and contemplating what classical Greek texts reveal about this space. Reflecting on this information in light of the remains of Greek homes, I then look to Roman primary source material to consider why the gynaeconitis took up a strong presence in Roman thought. I argue that Roman writers, although far-removed from fifth and fourth-century Greek homes, found the gynaeconitis most useful as a mutable and efficient symbol of male control and a conceptual locus of identity formation.
This dissertation analyzes the pervasive influence of the Epic Cycle, a set of Greek poems that sought collectively to narrate all the major events of the Trojan War, upon Greek tragedy, primarily ...those tragedies that were produced in the fifth century B.C. This influence is most clearly discernible in the high proportion of tragedies by Aeschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides that tell stories relating to the Trojan War and do so in ways that reveal the tragedians’ engagement with non-Homeric epic. An introduction lays out the sources, argues that the earlier literary tradition in the form of specific texts played a major role in shaping the compositions of the tragedians, and distinguishes the nature of the relationship between tragedy and the Epic Cycle from the ways in which tragedy made use of the Homeric epics. There follow three chapters each dedicated to a different poem of the Trojan Cycle: the Cypria, which communicated to Euripides and others the cosmic origins of the war and offered the greatest variety of episodes; the Little Iliad, which highlighted Odysseus’ career as a military strategist and found special favor with Sophocles; and the Telegony, which completed the Cycle by describing the peculiar circumstances of Odysseus’ death, attributed to an even more bizarre cause in preserved verses by Aeschylus. These case studies are taken to be representative of Greek tragedy’s reception of the Epic Cycle as a whole; while the other Trojan epics (the Aethiopis, Iliupersis , and Nostoi) are not treated comprehensively, they enter into the discussion at various points. Both the poems of the Epic Cycle and the majority of the tragedies that derived their stories from them survive only in meager fragments, and this study aims to improve how these small texts are read and how their lost contexts are reconstructed while also elucidating how the tragedians used and adapted the Cycle.
This Thesis documents my journey as an MFA candidate, actress of faith, and the development of Madeline Livingston in Regent University’s production of Deborah Brevoort’s The Women of Lockerbie. The ...introduction includes a brief description of my experiences thus far as well as a detailed outline of challenges and possible solutions that may occur during this production. Chapter One involves all the historical research that was necessary to understand the intentions of my character, genre, and the playwright’s intentions. Chapter Two is my textual analysis for this production and the role I will portray. This also involves an analysis of other plot structure, controlling and counter ideas, and spine phrase for major characters. Chapter Three is a thorough analysis of my character, as well as a free written backstory, moment to moment beat work, and techniques applied to bring her to life. Chapter Four includes the rehearsal and performance journals I will be keeping track of before and after each night. Chapter Five is the conclusion where I document discoveries and influence on my faith, response to criticism, advice, and a reflection. The Appendices entail the rehearsal schedules, production photos, playbill, and any free-associative writing.
The ancient Greek terms parrhesia and isegoria are both frequently translated as “free speech” or “freedom of speech”. Translating these terms in a straightforward fashion as “free speech” obscures a ...number of significant differences among what are in truth three very distinct concepts. These dis-analogies may appear unimportant at first glance, but when we understand the central role these concepts play in their respective cultures – more specifically, in their political and legal systems – it becomes clear that small differences in meaning can make a big difference in our ability to grasp the nature of Athenian civic culture. I will outline the most salient of these dis-analogies, and the mistaken conceptions of Athenian political culture that can, and do, result from them. In particular, though the idea of freedom features prominently in parrhesia and isegoria, what freedom amounts to in Athens is sometimes nearly antithetical to what it amounts to in modern liberal republics. Ancient Athenian freedom was the freedom of opportunity. In the case of parrhesia, it was a custom or value which was not a feature of government or law, but part of the Athenian character. The fact that Athenians valued free speaking was formalised in political practice under the democracy through the equal opportunity to address the political assemblies known as isegoria. There was in Athens no explicit or implied protection against the negative consequences of what one said. In contrast, “freedom of speech” means that the individual is protected against the negative consequences of speaking, in particular protected against action by the government to suppress speech and to punish speech after the fact. This difference in what having “freedom” with respect to speech amounts to, makes the translation of isegoria as “freedom of speech” nearly always systematically misleading, and so we should refrain from doing so in any context in which such confusion might be generated. This misunderstanding is compounded by the frequent translation of parrhesia as “freedom of speech” or “free speech”. Parrhesia is the name for a certain mode of speech, namely speech which is direct and truthful, and risks negative consequences. As such, it has both positive and negative connotations, and correspondingly was only valued in contexts in which direct truthful speech would be preferable to other modes of speech. Parrhesia was never formalised as isegoria was, since isegoria was a political privilege while parrhesia was merely a mode of expression. In contrast, free speech is legally protected. Speech which is not believed to be valuable is protected, in order to ensure that valuable speech is not suppressed by the powerful through the instruments of government.
This dissertation explores Euripides’ use of the deus ex machina device in his extant plays. While many scholars have discussed aspects of the deus ex machina my project explores the overall function ...not only of the deus ex machina within its play but also the function of two other aspects common to deus ex machina speeches: aitia and prophecy. I argue that deus ex machina interventions are not motivated by a problem in the plot that they must solve but instead they are used to connect the world of the play to the world of the audience through use of cult aitia and prophecy. In Chapter 1, I provide an analysis of Euripides’ deus ex machina scenes in the Hippolytus, Andromache, Suppliants, Electra, Ion, Iphigenia in Tauris, Helen, Orestes, Bacchae, and Medea. I argue that in all but the Orestes the intervention does not have a major effect on the plot or characters and I identify certain trends in the function of deus ex machina scenes such as consolation, enhancing Athenian pride, and increasing experimentation in the deus ex machina’s role in respect to the plot of the play and the wider world of myth. In Chapter 2, I examine cult aitia in Euripides’ Hippolytus and Iphigenia in Tauris and argue that Euripides uses cult aitia in plays with strong religious or cultic themes in order to connect the world of the play with the world of the audience through ritual. I also argue against the idea that there is perfect correspondence between the aitia represented in Euripides and real life cult practice instead contending that differences between the aitia in Euripides and our evidence for real cult practice may stem from Euripides referencing real cults but modifying certain aspects in order to better suit his literary motives. In Chapter 3, I examine Euripides’ use of prophecy in his Electra, Helen, and Orestes. Using intertextuality and concepts from media studies I argue that Euripides uses prophecy to connect the world of the play to the world of the audience through myth. Euripides uses deus ex machina prophecy to connect plays which deviate substantially from the mythic tradition back to more established versions of the myth. Euripides links up his versions of a character or myth not only to portrayals by other authors like Aeschylus and Homer, but he also uses prophecy to link his own plays to other plays of his within the same narrative arc.
Ewans successfully combines scholarly research with his personal experience as a teacher and director of Aristophanes' plays to provide a comprehensive guide for the study and performance of ...Aristophanic comedy. Each volume begins with an introduction that provides general information on the nature of the festivals during which ancient Greek drama was performed, and a brief discussion of the fundamental characteristics of Aristophanes' comedic style. Kinesias can be translated as "prick," and Paiein-his deme, his home region-can be a synonym for binein-"fucking." Since it is not typical for anyone in modern Western society to introduce themselves by their name and their hometown, the joke is lost.
Apuleius is often considered to be a Latin sophist, a master of narratological and hermeneutic games, with no particular philosophical agenda. But complexity and playfulness are not necessarily ...synonymous with intellectual or moral emptiness. Indeed, Apuleius’ self-proclaimed Platonism links him to a figure whose very choice of medium, the dialogue, always plays philosophical games with the reader. This dissertation shows that Apuleius engages with Plato on a deeper level than has previously been thought, framing both his own texts and those of Plato in terms of a high-stakes choice to the reader in the spirit of the ‘choice of Heracles’. I focus on Apuleius’ use of the mirror trope—a trope he inherits from Plato but refracts through the Roman literary tradition. I argue that when Lucius looks into mirrors in the Metamorphoses, such as the mirroring water of Byrrhena’s atrium or the catoptric hair of the maid-servant Photis, Apuleius invites the reader into a complex game of identification and criticism. Lucius’ specular contemplation, though he attempts to fashion it after idealized Platonic mirroring encounters, begins to appear more like the delusional mirror-gazing of Ovid’s Narcissus or Seneca’s Hostius Quadra upon further analysis. Readers, who have been tricked into participating in a shared voyeurism with Lucius, are compelled to see themselves at the same time as they see Lucius in the mirror. At that moment, the reader is put into a kind of Platonic bind, whereby he or she is forced to choose whether or not to continue following Lucius into voyeuristic delusion.
