Stock Photo: Cover May Be Different
Marriage to Death. The Conflation of Wedding and Funeral Rituals in Greek Tragedy.
by REHM, R.,
- Used
- Paperback
- Condition
- See description
- ISBN 10
- 0691029164
- ISBN 13
- 9780691029160
- Seller
-
Aalten, Netherlands
Payment Methods Accepted
About This Item
Princeton University Press, Princeton, 1996. 3rd impr. XVIII,246p. ills. Paperback. 'The merits of this study is the systematic gathering of references to marriage and death rituals (as advertised). As the jacket blurb states 'the parallels between Greek wedding and death rituals have never been followed through a series of different tragedies as they have here.' Fair enough. This is a useful and profitable endeavor, as is the convenient presentation of practical and iconographical evidence of the first two chapters. Some of the readings and insights (as of Euripides' Suppliants, omitting the facile efforts to historicize and moralize) are worthy on their own, even for more familiar plays. R. knows his Greek, knows the scholarly literature, and works closely with texts in dissertation-like paraphrase. But the second part of the blurb that claims the contribution of this study as revealing 'that these rituals are not used to provide stability but are instead altered in ways that shake up the audience' or that this study offers a 'new perspective on Greek tragedy' is far less accurate. The complexity and significance of ritual acts in tragedy are principles discovered long ago and are subjects of continuing interest and sophisticated criticism. To state that 'wedding and funeral rituals provided a warp to match the woof of traditional mythology, on which was woven the cultural 'rug' of Athenian self-expression' (p. 139) and that 'in the hands of Aeschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides, the ritual/mythological rug did not sit still but was shifted and even pulled out from under those in the audience' (p. 140) hardly represents a major advance in our thinking. A truly dramaturgical kind of reading in the context of performance theory by one who works in modern theater and has practical experience of its operation might have done much to overcome the sense of this study's epigonal qualities and its need to resort to the subjunctive mood and sentimental rhetoric in order to find a civic context for ritual allusions in tragic action.' (F.I. ZEITLIN in Bryn Mawr Classical Review 95.02.05).
Reviews
(Log in or Create an Account first!)
Details
- Bookseller
- Scrinium Classical Antiquity (NL)
- Bookseller's Inventory #
- 12352
- Title
- Marriage to Death. The Conflation of Wedding and Funeral Rituals in Greek Tragedy.
- Author
- REHM, R.,
- Book Condition
- Used
- Quantity Available
- 1
- Binding
- Paperback
- ISBN 10
- 0691029164
- ISBN 13
- 9780691029160
- Publisher
- Princeton University Press
- Place of Publication
- Princeton, Nj
- This edition first published
- December 9, 1996
- Bookseller catalogs
- Antiquarian;
Terms of Sale
Scrinium Classical Antiquity
30 day return guarantee, with full refund including original shipping costs for up to 30 days after delivery if an item arrives misdescribed or damaged.
About the Seller
Scrinium Classical Antiquity
Biblio member since 2008
Aalten
About Scrinium Classical Antiquity
Scrinium stands for a specialized stock of new, secondhand and antiquarian books about Classical Antiquity. The main theme of our books is Classical Antiquity: texts and commentaries, translations, archeology, philosophy, travel, history, mythology, books for young people, philology, law, reception of classical motives in Middle Ages, Renaissance and our own time and neo-Hellenika (conptemporary Greece), and many more subjects. A more modest quantity of our books concerns countries, civilisations and religious movements on the edges of the classical world: e.g. Egypt, Middle East and Early Christianity. New books are partly in stock, partly to be ordered from publishers. We are connected to a large number of publishers and distributors, established both in the Netherlands and abroad.
Glossary
Some terminology that may be used in this description includes:
- Blurb
- The blurb refers to the commentary that appears on the dust jacket flaps or the rear of the dustjacket. In the case of a...
- Jacket
- Sometimes used as another term for dust jacket, a protective and often decorative wrapper, usually made of paper which wraps...
- Fair
- is a worn book that has complete text pages (including those with maps or plates) but may lack endpapers, half-title, etc....