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Author Mitchell-Boyask, Robin, 1961-

Title Plague and the Athenian imagination : drama, history, and the cult of Asclepius / Robin Mitchell-Boyask
Published Cambridge ; New York : Cambridge University Press, 2008

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Description 1 online resource (xiv, 209 pages) : illustrations
Contents Cover -- Contents -- Preface -- Prologue -- Chapter 1 Introduction -- Chapter 2 Death, myth and drama before the plague -- Chapter 3 Materials i: The language of disease in tragedy -- The rarity of loimos in tragedy -- The use of nosos in tragedy -- Aeschylus and nosos -- Nosos in sophocles and euripides -- Aristophanic comedy and the plague -- Medicine, politics and tragic drama -- Chapter 4 Plague, cult and drama: Euripides' Hippolytus -- Chapter 5 Oedipus and the plague -- Chapter 6 The Trachiniae and the plague -- Dating problems -- A parody of heracles in the clouds -- Heracles as plague victim -- The plague and the apotheosis of heracles -- Music, closure and cult -- Sophocles, heracles and athenian imperialism -- Chapter 7 Materials ii: The cult of Asclepius and the Theater of Dionysus -- Asclepius and the god of theater -- The uniqueness of the athenian asklepieion -- Asklepieion-theater configurations in other poleis -- Chapter 8 Disease and stasis in Euripidean drama: Tragic pharmacology on the south slope of the Acropolis -- Sickness and stasis in euripides' heracles -- Nosological imagery in euripidean drama -- Nosos in the phoenissae -- Pharmakon sôtr̊ias -- Heracles ii: text and context -- Tragic drama, scapegoating and ostracism -- Chapter 9 The Athenian Asklepieion and the end of the Philoctetes -- Lemnos and athens -- Sophocles' philoctetes and athenian cults -- Asclepius and asklepieion: remapping the action of the philoctetes -- Poetry and performance -- Sophocles' philoctetes and the athens of 409 bce -- Epilogue: philoctetes, freedom and the threat of tyranny in 410 -- Chapter 10 Conclusions and afterthoughts -- Works Cited -- Index -- Last Page
Summary The great plague of Athens that began in 430 BCE had an enormous effect on the imagination of its literary artists and on the social imagination of the city as a whole. In this 2007 book, Professor Mitchell-Boyask studies the impact of the plague on Athenian tragedy early in the 420s and argues for a significant relationship between drama and the development of the cult of the healing god Asclepius in the next decade, during a period of war and increasing civic strife. The Athenian decision to locate their temple for Asclepius adjacent to the Theater of Dionysus arose from deeper associations between drama, healing and the polis that were engaged actively by the crisis of the plague. The book also considers the representation of the plague in Thucydides' History as well as the metaphors generated by that representation which recur later in the same work
Bibliography Includes bibliographical references and index
Notes English
Print version record
SUBJECT Aesculapius (Roman deity) fast
Subject Aesculapius (Roman deity) -- Cult
Greek drama (Tragedy) -- History and criticism
Greek drama (Tragedy) -- Themes, motives -- History
Literature and society -- Greece -- Athens -- History
Drama -- Social aspects -- Greece -- Athens -- History
Plague in literature.
DRAMA -- Ancient, Classical & Medieval.
Cults
Drama -- Social aspects
Greek drama (Tragedy)
Greek drama (Tragedy) -- Themes, motives
Literature and society
Plague in literature
SUBJECT Greece, Ancient
Subject Greece -- Athens
Genre/Form Criticism, interpretation, etc.
History
Form Electronic book
LC no. 2008271808
ISBN 0511378041
9780511378935
0511378939
9780511378041
9786611243470
661124347X
9780511482304
0511482302
1107181194
9781107181199
1281243477
9781281243478
0511377169
9780511377167
0511376227
9780511376221
0511374690
9780511374692