The Spirit of Aristophanes

by Mary C English, Dustin W Dixon

Overview

The Spirit of Aristophanes is a wide-ranging collection of new studies of ancient literature and culture from fifth-century drama to the Roman novel. The essays use an array of approaches that will appeal to scholars and students interested in classical studies, gender and sexuality, literary history, performance and textual criticism.
This volume has been prepared in tribute to Jeffrey Henderson, William Goodwin Aurelio Professor of Greek Language and Literature Emeritus of Boston Universityand General Editor of the Loeb Classical Library. His vibrant research on classical literature, political ideology, civic culture, identity, obscenity and translation has shaped scholarly discourse for decades and has inspired each of the essays in this volume.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781399511971
Publisher:	Edinburgh University Press
Publication date:	06/30/2024
Pages:	224
Product dimensions:	6.14(w) x 9.21(h) x (d)

About the Author

Mary C. English is Professor of Classics and General Humanities at Montclair State University. She is co-editor of the Thornton Wilder Journal. With Lee M. Fratanuono, she edited Pushing the Boundaries of Historia (Routledge, 2018); and with Georgia L. Irby, she authored A Little Latin Reader (OUP, 2e 2017) and A New Latin Primer (OUP, 2015). She also has written numerous articles and book chapters on the staging of ancient comedy and the reception of Greek drama by contemporary American playwrights.

Dustin W. Dixon is Assistant Professor of Classics at Grinnell College. He is co-author of Performing Gods in Classical Antiquity and the Age of Shakespeare (Bloomsbury Academic, 2021). He has published articles on ancient tragedy and comedy, fragmentary drama and classical reception in Classical Philology, Classical Quarterly, and Classical Receptions Journal.

Table of Contents

Editors’ Acknowledgements

Contributors

A Note on the Text

Preface, Mary C. English and Dustin W. Dixon

1. Female Genitalia Onstage in Aristophanes, Amy Richlin

2. ‘Let Loose the Melodies of Holy Hymns’: Voice, Agency and Gender in Aristophanes’ Birds, Daniel Libatique

3. Performing Ritual Sacrifice in Aristophanes’ Peace and Birds, Mary C. English

4. Political Ambition and Poetry in Aristophanes’ Birds and Plato’s Aristophanes, I-Kai Jeng

5. Sophocles and Happy Endings, Anne Mahoney

6. Heroism in the Middle in Sophocles’ Philoctetes, Emily Austin

7. διδαγμάτων ἥδιστον: Storytelling and the Origin of Religion in the Sisyphus Fragment (43 Fr. 19 TrGF), Andrew Ford

8. The Whetstone of Love: Helen’s Blemished Beauty, Dustin W. Dixon

9. Virginity and the Postmortem State of the Body: Reading Mary and Hippolytus in Dialogue, Chris Synodinos

10. Literal Truth, Mythic Truth and Narrative in Longus’s Daphnis and Chloe, William Owens

11. The Body’s Borders: Violation and the Visual in the Carmina Priapea, Tyler T. Travillian

12. What Are the Goals of Lucretius’s De Rerum Natura?, James J. O’Hara

13. Not So Funny After All: On Deconstructing (and Reconstructing) the Text of Petronius, John P. Bodel

Index

Editorial Reviews

This collection of essays by former students of Jeffrey Henderson offers a rich and often provocative response and tribute to Jeff’s areas of scholarly expertise including editing and interpreting the language, performance and ideology of comedy. The essays question received categories of interpretation in a wide range of authors and genres.

Helene Foley

Inspired by the towering scholarship of Jeffrey Henderson on Aristophanes and Greek comedy, this collection of essays offers a variety of new and exciting perspectives on Greek comedy and its legacy, including topics in genre, narratology, gender and sexuality, religion and myth.

Ralph M. Rosen