Sos Eltis
- Published in print:
- 1996
- Published Online:
- October 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780198121831
- eISBN:
- 9780191671340
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198121831.001.0001
- Subject:
- Literature, 19th-century and Victorian Literature, Drama
This book challenges long-established views of Oscar Wilde as a dilettante and dandy, revealing him instead as a serious philosopher and social critic who used his plays to subvert the traditional ...
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This book challenges long-established views of Oscar Wilde as a dilettante and dandy, revealing him instead as a serious philosopher and social critic who used his plays to subvert the traditional values of Victorian literature and society. By tracing Wilde's painstaking revisions and redrafting of his plays, the book uncovers themes subsequently concealed in successive versions which demonstrate that Wilde was in fact an anarchist, a socialist, and a feminist. Wilde borrowed plots and incidents from numerous contemporary French and English plays, but he then subtly rewrote his plagiarized material in order to mock the conventions he imitated. By analysing previously unconsidered manuscript drafts, and comparing the finished plays with their sources, the book displays a surprising depth and complexity in Wilde's work. The little-known early play, Vera; or, The Nihilists is revealed as a politically radical drama, the society plays are shown to challenge Victorian sexual and social mores, and The Importance of Being Earnest is interpreted as an anarchic farce, which reflects the Utopian vision of Wilde's political essay, ‘The Soul of Man Under Socialism’.Less
This book challenges long-established views of Oscar Wilde as a dilettante and dandy, revealing him instead as a serious philosopher and social critic who used his plays to subvert the traditional values of Victorian literature and society. By tracing Wilde's painstaking revisions and redrafting of his plays, the book uncovers themes subsequently concealed in successive versions which demonstrate that Wilde was in fact an anarchist, a socialist, and a feminist. Wilde borrowed plots and incidents from numerous contemporary French and English plays, but he then subtly rewrote his plagiarized material in order to mock the conventions he imitated. By analysing previously unconsidered manuscript drafts, and comparing the finished plays with their sources, the book displays a surprising depth and complexity in Wilde's work. The little-known early play, Vera; or, The Nihilists is revealed as a politically radical drama, the society plays are shown to challenge Victorian sexual and social mores, and The Importance of Being Earnest is interpreted as an anarchic farce, which reflects the Utopian vision of Wilde's political essay, ‘The Soul of Man Under Socialism’.
D. M. Carter
- Published in print:
- 2008
- Published Online:
- January 2014
- ISBN:
- 9781904675501
- eISBN:
- 9781781385463
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Liverpool University Press
- DOI:
- 10.5949/liverpool/9781904675501.003.0004
- Subject:
- Classical Studies, Literary Studies: Classical, Early, and Medieval
In this chapter there are detailed discussions of two plays of Sophocles (Ajax, Antigone) and two of Euripides (Suppliants, Trojan Women). The discussion unpicks some of the key political issues that ...
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In this chapter there are detailed discussions of two plays of Sophocles (Ajax, Antigone) and two of Euripides (Suppliants, Trojan Women). The discussion unpicks some of the key political issues that are explored in the plays; it can be assumed that these issues not only made for good drama but were also of interest to members of the original fifth-century audience. Some recurrent issues may surprise modern readers: it may not concern us very much how best to treat our enemies when they have died, but this type of crisis recurs in several tragedies as well as in the Iliad. A concluding section shows how these issues helped the theatre-goer to think about what it meant to be a member of a Greek city-state.Less
In this chapter there are detailed discussions of two plays of Sophocles (Ajax, Antigone) and two of Euripides (Suppliants, Trojan Women). The discussion unpicks some of the key political issues that are explored in the plays; it can be assumed that these issues not only made for good drama but were also of interest to members of the original fifth-century audience. Some recurrent issues may surprise modern readers: it may not concern us very much how best to treat our enemies when they have died, but this type of crisis recurs in several tragedies as well as in the Iliad. A concluding section shows how these issues helped the theatre-goer to think about what it meant to be a member of a Greek city-state.
András Kiséry
- Published in print:
- 2016
- Published Online:
- April 2016
- ISBN:
- 9780198746201
- eISBN:
- 9780191808814
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198746201.003.0001
- Subject:
- Literature, Shakespeare Studies, 16th-century and Renaissance Literature
A key function of political drama of the turn of the seventeenth century was in helping large audiences understand what politics was. Attention to its role in the dissemination of political knowledge ...
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A key function of political drama of the turn of the seventeenth century was in helping large audiences understand what politics was. Attention to its role in the dissemination of political knowledge in early modern England, and the recognition of that knowledge as a form of cultural capital, forces us to revise the familiar narratives about the emergence of the public sphere. Reading scenes from Twelfth Night, Alphonsus Emperor of Germanie, and Jack Drum’s Entertainment, the Introduction makes a case for combining Pierre Bourdieu’s analytic of cultural capital with Jürgen Habermas’s account of the public sphere, and for recognizing the role of political knowledge in the creation of a politic style, whose aesthetic was not literary, but social and conversational.Less
A key function of political drama of the turn of the seventeenth century was in helping large audiences understand what politics was. Attention to its role in the dissemination of political knowledge in early modern England, and the recognition of that knowledge as a form of cultural capital, forces us to revise the familiar narratives about the emergence of the public sphere. Reading scenes from Twelfth Night, Alphonsus Emperor of Germanie, and Jack Drum’s Entertainment, the Introduction makes a case for combining Pierre Bourdieu’s analytic of cultural capital with Jürgen Habermas’s account of the public sphere, and for recognizing the role of political knowledge in the creation of a politic style, whose aesthetic was not literary, but social and conversational.
Marcus Aurelius and Marcus Cornelius Fronto
- Published in print:
- 2007
- Published Online:
- March 2013
- ISBN:
- 9780226713007
- eISBN:
- 9780226713021
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- University of Chicago Press
- DOI:
- 10.7208/chicago/9780226713021.001.0001
- Subject:
- Classical Studies, Ancient Greek, Roman, and Early Christian Philosophy
In 1815 a manuscript containing one of the long-lost treasures of antiquity was discovered—the letters of Marcus Cornelius Fronto, reputed to have been one of the greatest Roman orators. But this ...
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In 1815 a manuscript containing one of the long-lost treasures of antiquity was discovered—the letters of Marcus Cornelius Fronto, reputed to have been one of the greatest Roman orators. But this find disappointed many nineteenth-century readers, who had hoped for the letters to convey all of the political drama of Cicero's. That the collection included passionate love letters between Fronto and the future emperor Marcus Aurelius was politely ignored—or concealed. And for almost 200 years these letters have lain hidden in plain sight. This book rescues these letters from obscurity and returns them to the public eye. The story of Marcus and Fronto began in 139 ce, when Fronto was selected to instruct Marcus in rhetoric. Marcus was eighteen then, and by all appearances the pupil and teacher fell in love. Spanning the years in which the relationship flowered and died, these are the only love letters to survive from antiquity—homoerotic or otherwise. The translation reproduces the effusive, slangy style of the young prince and the rhetorical flourishes of his master.Less
In 1815 a manuscript containing one of the long-lost treasures of antiquity was discovered—the letters of Marcus Cornelius Fronto, reputed to have been one of the greatest Roman orators. But this find disappointed many nineteenth-century readers, who had hoped for the letters to convey all of the political drama of Cicero's. That the collection included passionate love letters between Fronto and the future emperor Marcus Aurelius was politely ignored—or concealed. And for almost 200 years these letters have lain hidden in plain sight. This book rescues these letters from obscurity and returns them to the public eye. The story of Marcus and Fronto began in 139 ce, when Fronto was selected to instruct Marcus in rhetoric. Marcus was eighteen then, and by all appearances the pupil and teacher fell in love. Spanning the years in which the relationship flowered and died, these are the only love letters to survive from antiquity—homoerotic or otherwise. The translation reproduces the effusive, slangy style of the young prince and the rhetorical flourishes of his master.
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/9780198718291.003.0007
- Subject:
- Classical Studies, Literary Studies: Classical, Early, and Medieval
The chapter outlines what is known of first-century AD praetextae, stressing the aspects suggesting generic continuity, even under radically altered political circumstances. After examining the ...
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The chapter outlines what is known of first-century AD praetextae, stressing the aspects suggesting generic continuity, even under radically altered political circumstances. After examining the evidence concerning the dramas of Persius and Pomponius Secundus, the main focus is on the enigmatic but clearly impressive dramatist, Curiatius Maternus, who is known from Tacitus and the epitomes of Dio. In a reassessment of this latter evidence, it is argued that the soubriquet ‘sophist’ and the distance in time between Maternus reciting his Cato and his execution in 91, under Domitian, are no obstacle to identifying Tacitus’ Maternus with Dio’s. The chapter further argues that Maternus wrote a Nero, a praetexta recited to great effect soon after Nero’s fall, during the reign of Galba.Less
The chapter outlines what is known of first-century AD praetextae, stressing the aspects suggesting generic continuity, even under radically altered political circumstances. After examining the evidence concerning the dramas of Persius and Pomponius Secundus, the main focus is on the enigmatic but clearly impressive dramatist, Curiatius Maternus, who is known from Tacitus and the epitomes of Dio. In a reassessment of this latter evidence, it is argued that the soubriquet ‘sophist’ and the distance in time between Maternus reciting his Cato and his execution in 91, under Domitian, are no obstacle to identifying Tacitus’ Maternus with Dio’s. The chapter further argues that Maternus wrote a Nero, a praetexta recited to great effect soon after Nero’s fall, during the reign of Galba.
Patrick Kragelund
- Published in print:
- 2015
- Published Online:
- March 2016
- ISBN:
- 9780198718291
- eISBN:
- 9780191787614
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198718291.001.0001
- Subject:
- Classical Studies, Literary Studies: Classical, Early, and Medieval
This book first examines the fragmentary evidence for Roman historical dramas (praetextae), from 200 BC down to 100 AD. Discussion centres on the genre’s kinship with tragedy as well as on generic ...
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This book first examines the fragmentary evidence for Roman historical dramas (praetextae), from 200 BC down to 100 AD. Discussion centres on the genre’s kinship with tragedy as well as on generic specifics: the use of historical topics and local formats, of an aetiological and teleological perspective, and of an episodic structure characterized by abrupt changes of time and settings. The fall of the Republic made deadly conflict between Romans (rather than with foreign enemies) a relevant topic for a plot. The sole surviving praetexta, the anonymous Octavia, offers a vivid re-creation of a crucial historical episode, the lethal strife with Seneca and the populous caused by Nero’s murderous divorce from his empress Octavia and marriage to Poppaea in 62 AD. This drama reflects scenic conventions and notions of the dramatic that radically transform our knowledge of the Roman stage. Discussion focuses on its dynamic changes of time and setting, its startling interplay of the verbal and visual and its integration of issues pervading the politics of the period just after the fall of Nero, which, it is argued, was its time of writing. An unacknowledged favourite of the Renaissance dramatists, who reinvented classical-style tragedy, the impact of this drama is in the final section traced from Italy through France to Elizabethan England, before returning to Italy where the composer Claudio Monteverdi in Venice pioneered one of the earliest preserved operas with a plot ultimately based on the Octavia.Less
This book first examines the fragmentary evidence for Roman historical dramas (praetextae), from 200 BC down to 100 AD. Discussion centres on the genre’s kinship with tragedy as well as on generic specifics: the use of historical topics and local formats, of an aetiological and teleological perspective, and of an episodic structure characterized by abrupt changes of time and settings. The fall of the Republic made deadly conflict between Romans (rather than with foreign enemies) a relevant topic for a plot. The sole surviving praetexta, the anonymous Octavia, offers a vivid re-creation of a crucial historical episode, the lethal strife with Seneca and the populous caused by Nero’s murderous divorce from his empress Octavia and marriage to Poppaea in 62 AD. This drama reflects scenic conventions and notions of the dramatic that radically transform our knowledge of the Roman stage. Discussion focuses on its dynamic changes of time and setting, its startling interplay of the verbal and visual and its integration of issues pervading the politics of the period just after the fall of Nero, which, it is argued, was its time of writing. An unacknowledged favourite of the Renaissance dramatists, who reinvented classical-style tragedy, the impact of this drama is in the final section traced from Italy through France to Elizabethan England, before returning to Italy where the composer Claudio Monteverdi in Venice pioneered one of the earliest preserved operas with a plot ultimately based on the Octavia.
