Description
Book SynopsisRichard Seaford is one of the most original and provocative classicists of his age. This volume brings together a wide range of papers written with a single focus. Several are pioneering explorations of the tragic evocation and representation of rites of passage: mystic initiation, the wedding, and death ritual. Two papers focus on the shaping power of mystic initiation in two famous passages in the New Testament. The other key factor in the historical context of tragedy is the recent monetisation of Athens. One paper explores the presence of money in Greek tragedy, another the shaping influence of money on Wagner''s Ring and on his Aeschylean model. Other papers reveal the influence of ritual and money on representations of the inner self, and on Greek and Indian philosophy. A final piece finds in Greek tragedy horror at the destructive unlimitedness of money that is still central to our postmodern world.
Table of ContentsForeword; Part I. Tragedy: General: 1. Homeric and tragic sacrifice; 2. Dionsysos as destroyer of the household: Homer, tragedy and the Polis; 3. Dionysos, money and drama; 4. Tragic money; 5. Tragic tyranny; 6. Aeschylus and the Unity of Opposites; Part II. Performance and the Mysteries: 7. The 'Hyporchema' of Pratinas; 8. The politics of the mystic; 9. Immortality, salvation and the elements; 10. Sophocles and the mysteries; Part III. Tragedy and Death Ritual: 11. The last bath of Agamemnon; 12. The destruction of limits in Sophocles' Electra; Part IV. Tragedy and Marriage: 13. The tragic wedding; 14. The structural problems of marriage in Euripides; Part V. New Testament: 15. 1 Corinthians 13.12: 'Through A Glass Darkly'; 16. Thunder, lightning and earthquake in the Bacchae and The Acts of The Apostles; Part VI. The Inner Self: 17. Monetisation and the genesis of the Western subject; 18. The fluttering soul; Part VII. Inida and Greece: 19. Why did the Greeks not have Karma?; Part VIII. Money and Modernity: 20. Form and money in Wagner's Ring and Aeschylean tragedy; 21. World without limits.
