Spectator politics
Subtitle: metatheatre and performance in Aristophanes
By: Niall W. Slater.
Publisher: University of Pennsylvania Press
Published: 2002
Place of publication: Philadelphia
Language: eng; gre
Number of pages: 363
Subjects: Aristophanes -- Technique.; Aristophanes -- Political and social views.; Aristophanes -- Dramatic production.; Theater audiences -- Greece -- History -- To 1500.; Political plays, Greek -- History and criticism.; Greek drama (Comedy) -- History and criticism.; Politics and literature -- Greece.; Theater -- History -- To 500.; Drama -- Technique.; Rhetoric, Ancient.; Theater -- Greece.; Athens (Greece) -- Politics and government.
Description: "Spectator Politics is the first major study of metatheatre, or theatrically self-conscious performance, in Aristophanes. Using reception-based performance criticism, Niall Slater elucidates the comic effectiveness of the earliest surviving comedies in the Western tradition.

Slater demonstrates that Aristophanes employed metatheatre not simply to entertain but also to teach his audience how to read and interpret performance in other key public venues of the ancient democracy of Athens, such as performances in the political assembly and law courts. Aristophanes was, Slater contends, the first performance critic."--BOOK JACKET.
Notes: Includes bibliographical references (p. [323]-339) and indexes.
Table of contents: title: Machine generated contents note: 1. The Naming of Parts; title: 2. The Emergence of the Actor 22; title: 3. Euripides' Rag and Bone Shop: Acharnians 42; title: 4. The Politics of Performance: Knights 68; title: 5. Bringing Up Father: Wasps 86; title: 6. Making Peace-Or Dionysus in '21z 91; title: 7. Performing the City: Birds 132; title: 8. Cross-Dress for Success: Thesmophoriazusae 150; title: 9. Glorious Mud: Frogs 181; title: 10. Waiting in the Wings: Ecclesiazusae 207; title: 11. Reprise-And Coming Attractions 235.