Cassandra Adams
- Published in print:
- 2010
- Published Online:
- March 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780520252493
- eISBN:
- 9780520944565
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of California Press
- DOI:
- 10.1525/california/9780520252493.003.0031
- Subject:
- Sociology, Gender and Sexuality
In her poem entitled “Daddy Black Man,” Cassandra Adams, a prisoner, tells about her dream that her black father, whose physical features she inherited including the “caramel burnt skin, big doe ...
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In her poem entitled “Daddy Black Man,” Cassandra Adams, a prisoner, tells about her dream that her black father, whose physical features she inherited including the “caramel burnt skin, big doe eyes, and cheeks,” would one day love her.Less
In her poem entitled “Daddy Black Man,” Cassandra Adams, a prisoner, tells about her dream that her black father, whose physical features she inherited including the “caramel burnt skin, big doe eyes, and cheeks,” would one day love her.
Cassandra Adams
- Published in print:
- 2010
- Published Online:
- March 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780520252493
- eISBN:
- 9780520944565
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of California Press
- DOI:
- 10.1525/california/9780520252493.003.0064
- Subject:
- Sociology, Gender and Sexuality
In her poem entitled “Freedom Gon' Come,” Cassandra Adams laments that her freedom, which she got when she was released from prison on parole, means nothing because of the negative stereotypes held ...
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In her poem entitled “Freedom Gon' Come,” Cassandra Adams laments that her freedom, which she got when she was released from prison on parole, means nothing because of the negative stereotypes held by society against incarcerated people like her.Less
In her poem entitled “Freedom Gon' Come,” Cassandra Adams laments that her freedom, which she got when she was released from prison on parole, means nothing because of the negative stereotypes held by society against incarcerated people like her.
Charles McNelis and Alexander Sens
- Published in print:
- 2016
- Published Online:
- May 2016
- ISBN:
- 9780199601899
- eISBN:
- 9780191827525
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199601899.001.0001
- Subject:
- Classical Studies, European History: BCE to 500CE
The obscurity of Lycophron’s Alexandra was already notorious in antiquity and has long hampered a holistic approach to the poem. Through a series of distinct but closely integrated literary studies ...
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The obscurity of Lycophron’s Alexandra was already notorious in antiquity and has long hampered a holistic approach to the poem. Through a series of distinct but closely integrated literary studies of major aspects of the work, including its style, its engagement with the traditions of epic and tragedy, and its treatment of heroism and of the gods, the book explores the way the Alexandra reconfigures Greek mythology, particularly as presented in Homeric epic and Athenian tragedy, in order to cast the Romans and their restoration of Trojan glory as the ultimate telos of history. In this sense, the poem emerges as an important intermediary between Homeric epic and Latin poetry, particularly Vergil’s Aeneid. By rewriting specific features of the epic and tragic traditions, the Alexandra denies to Greek heroes the glory that was the traditional compensation for their suffering, while at the same time attributing to Cassandra’s Trojan family honors framed in the traditional language of Greek heroism. In this sense, the figure of Cassandra, a prophetess traditionally gifted with the power of foresight but denied credibility, self-reflexively serves as a vehicle for exploring the potentials and limitations of poetry.Less
The obscurity of Lycophron’s Alexandra was already notorious in antiquity and has long hampered a holistic approach to the poem. Through a series of distinct but closely integrated literary studies of major aspects of the work, including its style, its engagement with the traditions of epic and tragedy, and its treatment of heroism and of the gods, the book explores the way the Alexandra reconfigures Greek mythology, particularly as presented in Homeric epic and Athenian tragedy, in order to cast the Romans and their restoration of Trojan glory as the ultimate telos of history. In this sense, the poem emerges as an important intermediary between Homeric epic and Latin poetry, particularly Vergil’s Aeneid. By rewriting specific features of the epic and tragic traditions, the Alexandra denies to Greek heroes the glory that was the traditional compensation for their suffering, while at the same time attributing to Cassandra’s Trojan family honors framed in the traditional language of Greek heroism. In this sense, the figure of Cassandra, a prophetess traditionally gifted with the power of foresight but denied credibility, self-reflexively serves as a vehicle for exploring the potentials and limitations of poetry.
Milo Jones and Philippe Silberzahn
- Published in print:
- 2013
- Published Online:
- January 2014
- ISBN:
- 9780804785808
- eISBN:
- 9780804787154
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Stanford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.11126/stanford/9780804785808.001.0001
- Subject:
- Political Science, Conflict Politics and Policy
The CIA was created in 1947 in large part to prevent another Pearl Harbor. On at least four dramatic occasions, the Agency failed at this task: prior to in the Cuban Missile Crisis in 1962, the ...
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The CIA was created in 1947 in large part to prevent another Pearl Harbor. On at least four dramatic occasions, the Agency failed at this task: prior to in the Cuban Missile Crisis in 1962, the Iranian revolution of 1978, the collapse of the USSR in 1991, and the 9/11 terrorist attacks. There has been no shortage of studies to understand how such failures happened. Until now, however, none of the explanations proffered has been fully satisfying, and sometimes competing explanations have been mutually incompatible. In contrast, this book proposes a unified, coherent and rigorous theory of intelligence failure built on culture and identity. Crucially, the book takes a systematic look at Cassandras - people who offered strategic warning, but were ignored, to show that surprises could be anticipated. As the first post-positivist study of intelligence failure, the book views intelligence analysis as permeated by social facts, and thus firmly in the grip of the identity and culture of the intelligence producer, the CIA. As a consequence, it can present novel model of surprise that focuses on the internal make-up the CIA, including the identities of analysts, the corporate identity of Langley as a whole, and the Agency's organizational culture. It suggests that by examining the key features of the Agency's identity and culture, we can arrive at a holistic, unified understanding of the intelligence failures that resulted in dramatic strategic surprises.Less
The CIA was created in 1947 in large part to prevent another Pearl Harbor. On at least four dramatic occasions, the Agency failed at this task: prior to in the Cuban Missile Crisis in 1962, the Iranian revolution of 1978, the collapse of the USSR in 1991, and the 9/11 terrorist attacks. There has been no shortage of studies to understand how such failures happened. Until now, however, none of the explanations proffered has been fully satisfying, and sometimes competing explanations have been mutually incompatible. In contrast, this book proposes a unified, coherent and rigorous theory of intelligence failure built on culture and identity. Crucially, the book takes a systematic look at Cassandras - people who offered strategic warning, but were ignored, to show that surprises could be anticipated. As the first post-positivist study of intelligence failure, the book views intelligence analysis as permeated by social facts, and thus firmly in the grip of the identity and culture of the intelligence producer, the CIA. As a consequence, it can present novel model of surprise that focuses on the internal make-up the CIA, including the identities of analysts, the corporate identity of Langley as a whole, and the Agency's organizational culture. It suggests that by examining the key features of the Agency's identity and culture, we can arrive at a holistic, unified understanding of the intelligence failures that resulted in dramatic strategic surprises.
Peter J. Bailey
- Published in print:
- 2016
- Published Online:
- September 2016
- ISBN:
- 9780813167190
- eISBN:
- 9780813167862
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University Press of Kentucky
- DOI:
- 10.5810/kentucky/9780813167190.003.0016
- Subject:
- Film, Television and Radio, Film
The good-feelings aura of Manhattan Murder Mystery was undermined by the lack of any real creativity in that movie; the Greek chorus framing Mighty Aphrodite and thematically connected to its search ...
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The good-feelings aura of Manhattan Murder Mystery was undermined by the lack of any real creativity in that movie; the Greek chorus framing Mighty Aphrodite and thematically connected to its search for origins makes it a more compelling comedy. Mighty Aphrodite dramatically opposes Allen’s pessimistic perception of human life with his desire to make movies that provide the condemned with consolatory laughter, the Greek chorus transforming itself from a prognosticator of dark fates to celebrants of “that voodoo that you do so well.” Heredity proves to be other than deterministic in Mighty Aphrodite,which offers as benignly comedic a validation as Allen could manage to create on film of his much-quoted self-justification during the tabloid wars, “the heart wants what it wants.”Less
The good-feelings aura of Manhattan Murder Mystery was undermined by the lack of any real creativity in that movie; the Greek chorus framing Mighty Aphrodite and thematically connected to its search for origins makes it a more compelling comedy. Mighty Aphrodite dramatically opposes Allen’s pessimistic perception of human life with his desire to make movies that provide the condemned with consolatory laughter, the Greek chorus transforming itself from a prognosticator of dark fates to celebrants of “that voodoo that you do so well.” Heredity proves to be other than deterministic in Mighty Aphrodite,which offers as benignly comedic a validation as Allen could manage to create on film of his much-quoted self-justification during the tabloid wars, “the heart wants what it wants.”
Kristina Mendicino
- Published in print:
- 2016
- Published Online:
- May 2017
- ISBN:
- 9780823274017
- eISBN:
- 9780823274062
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Fordham University Press
- DOI:
- 10.5422/fordham/9780823274017.003.0004
- Subject:
- Literature, Criticism/Theory
No reading of prophetic language, and no reading of Humboldt’s reflections on language, could proceed without attending closely to Cassandra’s speech in the Agamemnon, to which this chapter is ...
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No reading of prophetic language, and no reading of Humboldt’s reflections on language, could proceed without attending closely to Cassandra’s speech in the Agamemnon, to which this chapter is devoted. There, it will turn out that translation is the original problem of prophecy, as her utterances cross the registers of vision and speech; Greek and Trojan; human and divine tongues—whereby the divine source that is said to burn through her proves to be itself undecidable, at once reminiscent of the Furies and of their enemy, the oracular God Apollo. While Cassandra’s speech has repeatedly been described in the terms of the sublime, beginning with the earliest Greek hypothesis appended to the play, through Wilhelm von Humboldt’s preface to his Agamemnon, what is most striking about her language is not the past and future horrors of the House of Atreus that her words appear to summon, but, as the chorus will say, her “speaking of an other-speaking city” (1200–1), in another speech that also removes these Argive elders from their proper language.Less
No reading of prophetic language, and no reading of Humboldt’s reflections on language, could proceed without attending closely to Cassandra’s speech in the Agamemnon, to which this chapter is devoted. There, it will turn out that translation is the original problem of prophecy, as her utterances cross the registers of vision and speech; Greek and Trojan; human and divine tongues—whereby the divine source that is said to burn through her proves to be itself undecidable, at once reminiscent of the Furies and of their enemy, the oracular God Apollo. While Cassandra’s speech has repeatedly been described in the terms of the sublime, beginning with the earliest Greek hypothesis appended to the play, through Wilhelm von Humboldt’s preface to his Agamemnon, what is most striking about her language is not the past and future horrors of the House of Atreus that her words appear to summon, but, as the chorus will say, her “speaking of an other-speaking city” (1200–1), in another speech that also removes these Argive elders from their proper language.
Milo Jones and Philippe Silberzahn
- Published in print:
- 2013
- Published Online:
- January 2014
- ISBN:
- 9780804785808
- eISBN:
- 9780804787154
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Stanford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.11126/stanford/9780804785808.003.0003
- Subject:
- Political Science, Conflict Politics and Policy
This chapter presents an overview of the CIA's internal culture and collective identity, and of the social mechanisms that created and maintained them between 1947 and 2001. First, it documents four ...
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This chapter presents an overview of the CIA's internal culture and collective identity, and of the social mechanisms that created and maintained them between 1947 and 2001. First, it documents four persistent features of the CIA's identity and culture that later chapters use to understand intelligence failure: homogeneity of personnel, scientism, a preference for secret rather than openly available information, and a drive for consensus over other analytic values. In later chapters, these features are revisited during each phase of the intelligence cycle to help understand how they create the conditions for intelligence failure. Next, the chapter details the four key mechanisms that gave rise to these features of the CIA and explain their persistence: the self-selection of personnel, the active selection of personnel, the socialization of analysts, and the mirror-imaging not only of the Agency's targets, but also the CIA's intelligence community partners and intelligence consumers.Less
This chapter presents an overview of the CIA's internal culture and collective identity, and of the social mechanisms that created and maintained them between 1947 and 2001. First, it documents four persistent features of the CIA's identity and culture that later chapters use to understand intelligence failure: homogeneity of personnel, scientism, a preference for secret rather than openly available information, and a drive for consensus over other analytic values. In later chapters, these features are revisited during each phase of the intelligence cycle to help understand how they create the conditions for intelligence failure. Next, the chapter details the four key mechanisms that gave rise to these features of the CIA and explain their persistence: the self-selection of personnel, the active selection of personnel, the socialization of analysts, and the mirror-imaging not only of the Agency's targets, but also the CIA's intelligence community partners and intelligence consumers.
Mary Anne Case
- Published in print:
- 2019
- Published Online:
- September 2019
- ISBN:
- 9780226601656
- eISBN:
- 9780226601793
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of Chicago Press
- DOI:
- 10.7208/chicago/9780226601793.003.0002
- Subject:
- Law, Constitutional and Administrative Law
Using Greek myth to illuminate some of the late Justice Scalia's rhetorical moves, this chapter argues that as an author of majority opinions, Scalia was often Procrustes, leaving no case behind but ...
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Using Greek myth to illuminate some of the late Justice Scalia's rhetorical moves, this chapter argues that as an author of majority opinions, Scalia was often Procrustes, leaving no case behind but forcing all prior doctrine into the shape he needed for the new law of rules he was announcing. In dissent, by contrast, Scalia could be Cassandra: describing what for him are the drastic consequences he foresees from the majority’s logic, he often paints a prophetic picture which in time comes true, perhaps in part because of, rather than in spite of, his horrified articulation of an opinion’s implications. While the progression of gay rights cases from Romer through Obergefell is the clearest and most sustained example of Scalia as Cassandra, his procrustean majority opinions include Employment Division v. Smith. For each of these cases, the chapter examines the structure and unintended consequences of Scalia's approach.Less
Using Greek myth to illuminate some of the late Justice Scalia's rhetorical moves, this chapter argues that as an author of majority opinions, Scalia was often Procrustes, leaving no case behind but forcing all prior doctrine into the shape he needed for the new law of rules he was announcing. In dissent, by contrast, Scalia could be Cassandra: describing what for him are the drastic consequences he foresees from the majority’s logic, he often paints a prophetic picture which in time comes true, perhaps in part because of, rather than in spite of, his horrified articulation of an opinion’s implications. While the progression of gay rights cases from Romer through Obergefell is the clearest and most sustained example of Scalia as Cassandra, his procrustean majority opinions include Employment Division v. Smith. For each of these cases, the chapter examines the structure and unintended consequences of Scalia's approach.
Luciano Floridi
- Published in print:
- 2013
- Published Online:
- January 2014
- ISBN:
- 9780199641321
- eISBN:
- 9780191760938
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199641321.003.0010
- Subject:
- Philosophy, Moral Philosophy, Philosophy of Science
In this chapter, I concentrate on information as a resource and product of ethical interactions, and do so by considering its semantic value. From a semantic perspective, information has played a ...
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In this chapter, I concentrate on information as a resource and product of ethical interactions, and do so by considering its semantic value. From a semantic perspective, information has played a major role in any moral theory at least since Socrates’ time. ICTs have now revolutionized the life of information, from its production and management to its consumption, thus deeply affecting our moral lives. Amid the many issues they have raised, a very serious one, discussed in this chapter, is what I have labelled as the tragedy of the Good Will. This is represented by the increasing pressure that ICTs and their deluge of information are putting on any responsible (in the technical sense seen in Chapter 7) agent who would like to act morally, when informed about actual or potential evils, as defined in Chapter 9, but who also lacks the resources to do much about them.Less
In this chapter, I concentrate on information as a resource and product of ethical interactions, and do so by considering its semantic value. From a semantic perspective, information has played a major role in any moral theory at least since Socrates’ time. ICTs have now revolutionized the life of information, from its production and management to its consumption, thus deeply affecting our moral lives. Amid the many issues they have raised, a very serious one, discussed in this chapter, is what I have labelled as the tragedy of the Good Will. This is represented by the increasing pressure that ICTs and their deluge of information are putting on any responsible (in the technical sense seen in Chapter 7) agent who would like to act morally, when informed about actual or potential evils, as defined in Chapter 9, but who also lacks the resources to do much about them.
Rosie Lavan
- Published in print:
- 2019
- Published Online:
- September 2019
- ISBN:
- 9780198805656
- eISBN:
- 9780191843600
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/oso/9780198805656.003.0005
- Subject:
- Classical Studies, Poetry and Poets: Classical, Early, and Medieval, Literary Studies: Classical, Early, and Medieval
Discussing ‘Anything Can Happen’, his response, via Horace, to 11 September 2001, Heaney said to Dennis O’Driscoll: ‘For better or worse, you can’t be liberated from consciousness’. His version of ...
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Discussing ‘Anything Can Happen’, his response, via Horace, to 11 September 2001, Heaney said to Dennis O’Driscoll: ‘For better or worse, you can’t be liberated from consciousness’. His version of the thirty-fourth of the odes in Book 1 was, he said, ‘partly an elegy—but, to quote Wilfred Owen’s “Preface”, it was also meant “to warn”’ (O’Driscoll 2008: 424). Working from the heavy collocation of time and mood Heaney offered in these remarks, uniting elegiac retrospect and uneasy anticipation, this essay explores the coincidence of classical sources and contemporary concerns in Heaney’s earlier sequence ‘Mycenae Lookout’. It attends especially closely to Heaney’s re-imagining of Aeschylus’ Cassandra, and the burden of consciousness she both bears and represents.Less
Discussing ‘Anything Can Happen’, his response, via Horace, to 11 September 2001, Heaney said to Dennis O’Driscoll: ‘For better or worse, you can’t be liberated from consciousness’. His version of the thirty-fourth of the odes in Book 1 was, he said, ‘partly an elegy—but, to quote Wilfred Owen’s “Preface”, it was also meant “to warn”’ (O’Driscoll 2008: 424). Working from the heavy collocation of time and mood Heaney offered in these remarks, uniting elegiac retrospect and uneasy anticipation, this essay explores the coincidence of classical sources and contemporary concerns in Heaney’s earlier sequence ‘Mycenae Lookout’. It attends especially closely to Heaney’s re-imagining of Aeschylus’ Cassandra, and the burden of consciousness she both bears and represents.
Charles McNelis and Alexander Sens
- Published in print:
- 2016
- Published Online:
- May 2016
- ISBN:
- 9780199601899
- eISBN:
- 9780191827525
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199601899.003.0001
- Subject:
- Classical Studies, European History: BCE to 500CE
Lycophron’s Alexandra, at its core, takes up a question that runs through Greek literature from its inception: what is the relationship between poetic artifice and the truth? By exploiting the formal ...
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Lycophron’s Alexandra, at its core, takes up a question that runs through Greek literature from its inception: what is the relationship between poetic artifice and the truth? By exploiting the formal features of a tragic messenger speech and by having the messenger report verbatim a lengthy prophecy uttered by the traditionally unbelievable but accurate Cassandra, the poem claims over-determined authority for its reconfiguration of the history of the Trojan War. In doing so, the poem rewrites the literary tradition, particularly that of Greek epic and tragedy. Inasmuch as the poem fuses the voices of the poet, the messenger, and the prophetess whose words he repeats, its use of obscure language and mythology forms part of a broader engagement with the capacities and limitations of language.Less
Lycophron’s Alexandra, at its core, takes up a question that runs through Greek literature from its inception: what is the relationship between poetic artifice and the truth? By exploiting the formal features of a tragic messenger speech and by having the messenger report verbatim a lengthy prophecy uttered by the traditionally unbelievable but accurate Cassandra, the poem claims over-determined authority for its reconfiguration of the history of the Trojan War. In doing so, the poem rewrites the literary tradition, particularly that of Greek epic and tragedy. Inasmuch as the poem fuses the voices of the poet, the messenger, and the prophetess whose words he repeats, its use of obscure language and mythology forms part of a broader engagement with the capacities and limitations of language.
Charles McNelis and Alexander Sens
- Published in print:
- 2016
- Published Online:
- May 2016
- ISBN:
- 9780199601899
- eISBN:
- 9780191827525
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199601899.003.0004
- Subject:
- Classical Studies, European History: BCE to 500CE
This chapter offers a continuous, linear reading of Cassandra’s prophecy with the goal of illustrating the way in which individual passages are linked. In structure, the prophecy as a whole is ...
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This chapter offers a continuous, linear reading of Cassandra’s prophecy with the goal of illustrating the way in which individual passages are linked. In structure, the prophecy as a whole is divided into two major parts of unequal length: the first a sweeping account of the coming Trojan War and its aftermath (31–1282) and the second a broader treatment of the conflict between East and West of which it forms part (1283–1460). Both begin in the distant past and conclude with the ascendancy of the Romans, who thus represent the larger telos of the prophecy. Beyond this parallelism, the two halves of the prophecy not only have their own internal logic but are also linked to one another thematically and verbally.Less
This chapter offers a continuous, linear reading of Cassandra’s prophecy with the goal of illustrating the way in which individual passages are linked. In structure, the prophecy as a whole is divided into two major parts of unequal length: the first a sweeping account of the coming Trojan War and its aftermath (31–1282) and the second a broader treatment of the conflict between East and West of which it forms part (1283–1460). Both begin in the distant past and conclude with the ascendancy of the Romans, who thus represent the larger telos of the prophecy. Beyond this parallelism, the two halves of the prophecy not only have their own internal logic but are also linked to one another thematically and verbally.
Charles McNelis and Alexander Sens
- Published in print:
- 2016
- Published Online:
- May 2016
- ISBN:
- 9780199601899
- eISBN:
- 9780191827525
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199601899.003.0007
- Subject:
- Classical Studies, European History: BCE to 500CE
This chapter examines Cassandra’s treatment of three Greek heroes to whom she awards limited local honors. Philoctetes is killed in a way that evokes his activities in the Trojan War, and honored in ...
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This chapter examines Cassandra’s treatment of three Greek heroes to whom she awards limited local honors. Philoctetes is killed in a way that evokes his activities in the Trojan War, and honored in Italy in a manner far different than is imagined at the end of Sophocles’ eponymous play. Diomedes is treated as an analogue of Odysseus. By reconfiguring the transformation of companions into birds so that it occurs in his lifetime Cassandra augments his suffering, and although she treats him as a city-founder, she calls attention to the problematic relationship of his community to the native Italian population. Finally, Agamemnon’s death with Cassandra is predicted in a way that engages closely with the models of Homer and Aeschylus.Less
This chapter examines Cassandra’s treatment of three Greek heroes to whom she awards limited local honors. Philoctetes is killed in a way that evokes his activities in the Trojan War, and honored in Italy in a manner far different than is imagined at the end of Sophocles’ eponymous play. Diomedes is treated as an analogue of Odysseus. By reconfiguring the transformation of companions into birds so that it occurs in his lifetime Cassandra augments his suffering, and although she treats him as a city-founder, she calls attention to the problematic relationship of his community to the native Italian population. Finally, Agamemnon’s death with Cassandra is predicted in a way that engages closely with the models of Homer and Aeschylus.
Charles McNelis and Alexander Sens
- Published in print:
- 2016
- Published Online:
- May 2016
- ISBN:
- 9780199601899
- eISBN:
- 9780191827525
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199601899.003.0009
- Subject:
- Classical Studies, European History: BCE to 500CE
The final chapter considers the poem’s treatment of the gods, including its version of the problematic “plan of Zeus” mentioned at the outset of the Iliad and elsewhere in the epic tradition and its ...
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The final chapter considers the poem’s treatment of the gods, including its version of the problematic “plan of Zeus” mentioned at the outset of the Iliad and elsewhere in the epic tradition and its handling of divine justice. It argues that the poem’s representation of the operation of the cosmos is closely connected to its structure: the first part of Cassandra’s prophecy is a diptych in which the apparent success of the Greeks gives way, as a consequence of their own misdeeds, to ruin, while the disaster soon to befall the Trojans is compensated by the greater glory to come. In this the poem’s debt to tragedy is both formal and thematic: both the Trojans and the Greeks are brought to misfortune through improper behavior at a moment of success. More specifically, the Alexandra seems to evoke the ideas that run through the Cassandra-scene of Euripides’ Trojan Women.Less
The final chapter considers the poem’s treatment of the gods, including its version of the problematic “plan of Zeus” mentioned at the outset of the Iliad and elsewhere in the epic tradition and its handling of divine justice. It argues that the poem’s representation of the operation of the cosmos is closely connected to its structure: the first part of Cassandra’s prophecy is a diptych in which the apparent success of the Greeks gives way, as a consequence of their own misdeeds, to ruin, while the disaster soon to befall the Trojans is compensated by the greater glory to come. In this the poem’s debt to tragedy is both formal and thematic: both the Trojans and the Greeks are brought to misfortune through improper behavior at a moment of success. More specifically, the Alexandra seems to evoke the ideas that run through the Cassandra-scene of Euripides’ Trojan Women.
Laura Monrós-Gaspar
- Published in print:
- 2018
- Published Online:
- December 2018
- ISBN:
- 9780198804215
- eISBN:
- 9780191842412
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/oso/9780198804215.003.0034
- Subject:
- Classical Studies, Plays and Playwrights: Classical, Early, and Medieval
Victorian refigurations of the Cassandra myth ferment throughout the long eighteenth century, when new theatrical modes put into practice prevailing aesthetic theories that gave prominence to the ...
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Victorian refigurations of the Cassandra myth ferment throughout the long eighteenth century, when new theatrical modes put into practice prevailing aesthetic theories that gave prominence to the visual over the verbal. This chapter examines the range of prophetic Cassandras, from the Shakespearean raving prophetess to the palm-reading Gypsies of the 1860s. Such variations can only be given full expression on the stage, where a set of gestures, costumes, and sociocultural referents develop new cultural, inter-theatrical, and semiotic systems. Performing as the epic Cassandra also triggered the career of a number of actresses and dancers who found in Cassandra the perfect means to prove their performing skills to the audience. At a time when women’s access to knowledge was being disputed, the Cassandra myth provided fertile soil wherein to test and contest the role of women in society.Less
Victorian refigurations of the Cassandra myth ferment throughout the long eighteenth century, when new theatrical modes put into practice prevailing aesthetic theories that gave prominence to the visual over the verbal. This chapter examines the range of prophetic Cassandras, from the Shakespearean raving prophetess to the palm-reading Gypsies of the 1860s. Such variations can only be given full expression on the stage, where a set of gestures, costumes, and sociocultural referents develop new cultural, inter-theatrical, and semiotic systems. Performing as the epic Cassandra also triggered the career of a number of actresses and dancers who found in Cassandra the perfect means to prove their performing skills to the audience. At a time when women’s access to knowledge was being disputed, the Cassandra myth provided fertile soil wherein to test and contest the role of women in society.
Amy M. Froide
- Published in print:
- 2016
- Published Online:
- November 2016
- ISBN:
- 9780198767985
- eISBN:
- 9780191821837
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198767985.003.0004
- Subject:
- History, British and Irish Early Modern History, Economic History
This chapter explores the role of women as investors for their families. While some wives seem to have invested their own separate property and pin money without the agreement of their spouses, other ...
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This chapter explores the role of women as investors for their families. While some wives seem to have invested their own separate property and pin money without the agreement of their spouses, other married women invested openly. Despite their coverture, wives often performed the role of family investor in stocks and securities, and husbands frequently condoned this division of labor. Women, especially mothers, sisters, and aunts also served as financial agents for their extended kin, taking family money and investing it in the stock market to improve it. The case study of Mary Barwell reveals how one single woman became the financial agent for her brother in India, managing thousands of pounds for him and becoming involved in East India Company politics in the process.Less
This chapter explores the role of women as investors for their families. While some wives seem to have invested their own separate property and pin money without the agreement of their spouses, other married women invested openly. Despite their coverture, wives often performed the role of family investor in stocks and securities, and husbands frequently condoned this division of labor. Women, especially mothers, sisters, and aunts also served as financial agents for their extended kin, taking family money and investing it in the stock market to improve it. The case study of Mary Barwell reveals how one single woman became the financial agent for her brother in India, managing thousands of pounds for him and becoming involved in East India Company politics in the process.
Patrick Kragelund
- Published in print:
- 2015
- Published Online:
- March 2016
- ISBN:
- 9780198718291
- eISBN:
- 9780191787614
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198718291.003.0015
- Subject:
- Classical Studies, Literary Studies: Classical, Early, and Medieval
Four closely interlocked scenes conclude the play. The Palace Chorus’s praise of Poppaea’s deadly beauty is interrupted by the message of the people’s damnatio of Poppaea’s statues. Nero’s soliloquy ...
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Four closely interlocked scenes conclude the play. The Palace Chorus’s praise of Poppaea’s deadly beauty is interrupted by the message of the people’s damnatio of Poppaea’s statues. Nero’s soliloquy discloses his punitive plans for the Fire of Rome; his quarrel with the prefect, a stichomythic tour de force, shows the prefect to be the champion of the people and Octavia, Nero their enemy. Nero’s explicit orders force the prefect to ship her off to her death. The embarkation scene, with its ‘inverted triumph’ imagery and its death ship awaiting the protagonist, transforms the shackled Octavia into a latter-day Cassandra prophesying that the death awaiting her is also awaiting Nero. The final section summarizes the script’s dramatic excellence in the handling of settings and transitions, threshold, and cliff-hanger scenes no less than the continuous shifting between the front narrative and the meta-theatrical—qualities which were unlikely to have gone unrecognized.Less
Four closely interlocked scenes conclude the play. The Palace Chorus’s praise of Poppaea’s deadly beauty is interrupted by the message of the people’s damnatio of Poppaea’s statues. Nero’s soliloquy discloses his punitive plans for the Fire of Rome; his quarrel with the prefect, a stichomythic tour de force, shows the prefect to be the champion of the people and Octavia, Nero their enemy. Nero’s explicit orders force the prefect to ship her off to her death. The embarkation scene, with its ‘inverted triumph’ imagery and its death ship awaiting the protagonist, transforms the shackled Octavia into a latter-day Cassandra prophesying that the death awaiting her is also awaiting Nero. The final section summarizes the script’s dramatic excellence in the handling of settings and transitions, threshold, and cliff-hanger scenes no less than the continuous shifting between the front narrative and the meta-theatrical—qualities which were unlikely to have gone unrecognized.
