Entering the Agon: Dissent and Authority in Homer, Historiography, and Tragedy

Entering the Agon: Dissent and Authority in Homer, Historiography, and Tragedy
ISBN-10
0191562246
ISBN-13
9780191562242
Category
Literary Collections
Pages
448
Language
English
Published
2009-01-22
Publisher
OUP Oxford
Author
Elton T. E. Barker

Description

This book investigates one of the most characteristic and prominent features of ancient Greek literature - the scene of debate or agon, in which with varying degrees of formality characters square up to each other and engage in a contest of words. Drawing on six case studies of different kinds of narrative - epic, historiography and tragedy - and authors as diverse as Homer, Herodotus, Thucydides, Sophocles and Euripides, this wide-ranging study analyses each example of debate in its context according to a set of interrelated questions: who debates, when, why, and with what consequences? Based on the changing representations of debate across and within different genres, it shows the importance of debate to these key canonical genres and, in turn, the role of literature in the construction of a citizen body through the exploration, reproduction and management of dissent from authority.

Get the book

Amazon.com
Amazon.com
Search the book
eBay.com
eBay.com
Search the book

Other editions

Similar books

  • The Politics of Objectivity: An Essay on the Foundations of Political Conflict
    The Politics of Objectivity: An Essay on the Foundations of Political Conflict
    By Peter J. Steinberger

    ... Entering the Agon: Dissent and Authority in Homer, Historiography and Tragedy (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009), pp. 35–36. 85 Barker, Entering the Agon, p. 37. Barker, Entering the Agon, p. 19. 87 Barker, Entering the Agon, p. 38 ...

  • The Oxford Handbook of Law and Humanities
    The Oxford Handbook of Law and Humanities
    By Simon Stern

    These are only some of the important questions addressed in this wide-ranging collection of law and humanities scholarship.

  • Narratives We Organize By
    Narratives We Organize By
    By Barbara Czarniawska, Pasquale Gagliardi

    ... agon of performance accounts reminds one of ancient agon, yet differs somewhat from its ancient ancestor. Modern ... entering the modern agon of performance do not actually enter competition to honor a god, but to show that they are ...

  • Gorgias, Sophist and Artist
    Gorgias, Sophist and Artist
    By Scott Porter Consigny

    ... agon encourages individual boldness or daring in a manner that promotes the social good . Gorgias remarks that ... entering into an agon , an individual must be willing to subject his views to refu- tation and consequently to alter his ...

  • Nietzsche's Anti-Darwinism
    Nietzsche's Anti-Darwinism
    By Dirk R. Johnson

    ... agon is not specifically directed against an opponent or competitor, nor does it require the existential elimination ... entering into this formalized arena, he has already overcome the “man” in man, e.g. the natural instinct of fear and ...

  • Talking about Laughter: And Other Studies in Greek Comedy
    Talking about Laughter: And Other Studies in Greek Comedy
    By Alan H. Sommerstein

    ... enter as Socrates and Strepsiades.16* He notes that if in production the agon was thus followed as well as preceded by a choral song, it would be possible for the play to be performed by three actors (given certain assumptions about the ...

  • The Greek Muse: Bull-Man and his golden Lair
    The Greek Muse: Bull-Man and his golden Lair
    By Z J GALOS

    ... into the bathroom . Agon had been forced from early age to become a cat burglar at his home town , as his family was starving , his dad a victim of gang war shooting . He walked slowly , scanning the living room and he spotted the PC ...

  • Sport in the Greek and Roman Worlds
    Sport in the Greek and Roman Worlds
    By Thomas Francis Scanlon

    From the Minoan bull-leaping to the ancient Olympics and the enigmas of their contests, this first volume of Sport in the Greek and Roman Worlds contains nine articles and chapters of enduring importance to the study of sport in ancient ...

  • Ranger Rising: Claire-Agon Ranger Book One
    By Salvador Mercer

    A thousand years ago, on the world of Claire-Agon, a war raged between men and dragons, destroying the creatures and the land's many civilizations.

  • Leisure, Pleasure and Healing: Spa Culture and Medicine in Ancient Eastern Mediterranean
    Leisure, Pleasure and Healing: Spa Culture and Medicine in Ancient Eastern Mediterranean
    By Esti Dvorjetski

    ... from Canon 30 of the Synod of Laodicea in Phrygia in the middle of the fourth century CE . This regulation declared that ' no priests or clerics or ascetics are permitted to bathe in the baths with women , nor any Christian or laic ...