Female acts in Greek tragedy
By: Helene P. Foley.
Series: Martin classical lectures; Martin classical lectures (Unnumbered).
Publisher: Princeton University Press
Published: 2001
Place of publication: Princeton, N.J
Language: eng
Number of pages: 410
Subjects: Greek drama (Tragedy) -- History and criticism; Women and literature -- Greece; Women in literature
Description: "Although Classical Athenian ideology did not permit women to exercise legal, economic, and social autonomy, the tragedies of Aeschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides often represent them as influential social and moral forces in their own right. Scholars have struggled to explain this seeming contradiction. Helene Foley shows how Greek tragedy uses gender relations to explore specific issues in the development of social, political, and intellectual life in the polis.

She investigates three central and problematic areas in which tragic heroines act independently of men: death ritual and lamentation, marriage, and the making of significant ethical choices. Her anthropological approach, together with her literary analysis, allows for an unusually rich context in which to understand gender relations in ancient Greece."--BOOK JACKET.
Notes: Includes bibliographical references (p. [339]-368) and index.
Table of contents: title: Machine generated contents note: Introduction; title: L The Politics of Tragic Lamentation; title: II. The Contradictions of Tragic Marriage; title: II1. Women as Moral Agents in Greek Tragedy; title: 111.1. Virgins, Wives, and Mothers; Penelope as Paradigm; title: 111.2. Sacrificial Virgins: The Ethics of Lamentation; title: in Sophocles' Electra; title: 111.3. Sacrificial Virgins: Antigone as Moral Agent; title: 111.4. Tragic Wives: Clytemnestras; title: 111.5. Tragic Wives: Medea's Divided Self; title: III.6. Tragic Mothers: Maternal Persuasion in Euripides; title: IV. Anodos Dramas: Euripides' Acesds and Helen; title: Conclusion; title: Bibliography; title: General Index; title: Index Locurum.