Description
Heracles and Athenian Propagandaexamines how Greece's most important hero was appropriated and portrayed by Athens in religion, politics, architecture and literature, with a detailed study of Euripides' Heraclesin relation to this interplay between the hero and the city's ideology. Though Athens needed a hero of Hellenic stature, Heracles was a deeply problematic figure: a violent hero of ancient epic, with an aristocratic nature and a murderous temper, who did not naturally fit into the new ideals of democratic society at Athens.
Examining how Euripides' play fits within the space of the polisand its political ideology, Sofia Frade asks specific questions of tragedy and politics: how does Euripides' tragic drama of grief, insanity and murder reconcile this hero to a palatable, patriotic ideal? How does the tragic hero relate to his own representations and his cult within the polis? In a city so marked by iconographic propaganda, how did the imagery influence the audience?
By looking at the play's larger contexts - literary, civic, political, religious and ideological - new readings are offered to the most problematic elements of the play, including the question of its unity, the nature of the hero's madness and the role of the gods.
Author: Sofia Frade
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing PLC
Published: 06/15/2023
Pages: 176
Binding Type: Hardcover
Weight: 0.93lbs
Size: 9.21h x 6.14w x 0.44d
ISBN13: 9781472505590
ISBN10: 147250559X
BISAC Categories:
- History | Ancient | Greece
- Literary Criticism | Ancient and Classical
- Social Science | Folklore & Mythology
Examining how Euripides' play fits within the space of the polisand its political ideology, Sofia Frade asks specific questions of tragedy and politics: how does Euripides' tragic drama of grief, insanity and murder reconcile this hero to a palatable, patriotic ideal? How does the tragic hero relate to his own representations and his cult within the polis? In a city so marked by iconographic propaganda, how did the imagery influence the audience?
By looking at the play's larger contexts - literary, civic, political, religious and ideological - new readings are offered to the most problematic elements of the play, including the question of its unity, the nature of the hero's madness and the role of the gods.
Author: Sofia Frade
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing PLC
Published: 06/15/2023
Pages: 176
Binding Type: Hardcover
Weight: 0.93lbs
Size: 9.21h x 6.14w x 0.44d
ISBN13: 9781472505590
ISBN10: 147250559X
BISAC Categories:
- History | Ancient | Greece
- Literary Criticism | Ancient and Classical
- Social Science | Folklore & Mythology
About the Author
Sofia Frade is Assistant Professor in Classics at the University of Lisbon, Portugal.