Tragedy in Athens: Performance Space and Theatrical Meaning [Paperback]

David Wiles (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 0521666155 | ISBN-13: 978-0521666152 | Publication Date: August 28, 1999

David Wiles explores the performance of tragedy as a spatial practice specific to Athenian culture, at once religious and political. After reviewing controversies and archaeological data regarding the fifth-century performance space, Wiles turns to the chorus and shows how dance mapped out the space for the purposes of any given play. He shows how performance as a whole was organized and, through informative diagrams and accessible analyses, brings the theater of Greek tragedy to life.

Editorial Reviews

Review

"Tightly argued and wide-ranging in its citation of modern scholarship and ancient evidence, Wiles's book never becomes indigestible; it should become required reading for serious students of Greek tragedy, including those who are reluctant to heed the author's challenge." W. W. de Grummond, Choice

Book Description

This book examines the performance of Greek tragedy in the classical Athenian theatre. David Wiles explores the performance of tragedy as a spatial practice specific to Athenian culture, at once religious and political. After reviewing controversies and archaeological data regarding the fifth-century performance space, Wiles turns to the chorus and shows how dance mapped out the space for the purposes of any given play. The book shows how performance as a whole was organised and, through informative diagrams and accessible analyses, Wiles brings the theatre of Greek tragedy to life.

Product Details

• Paperback: 244 pages
• Publisher: Cambridge University Press (August 28, 1999)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0521666155
• ISBN-13: 978-0521666152
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 6 x 0.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 14.1 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,035,178 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Best critical tool for unlocking tragedy so far written, July 31, 2003

By 

Thomas D. Worthen (tucson, az United States) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Tragedy in Athens: Performance Space and Theatrical Meaning (Paperback)

First let me state that this book is NOT for a person untutored in Greek tragedy. You have to know the plays well to begin to fathom the exquisite sense Mr. Wiles' analysis lends to an often mysterious performance-art form of which we have remaining only text.

That done, I will content myself and the discerning reader with a single extended quote:

The Greek spectator did not leave his real physical environment behind and through his imagination somehow enter into a fictional universe where all spatial relationships are relative and the dramatic action is a closed structure. Fellow spectators were inescapably part of his visual field. So was the sun. His sense of absolute rather than relative space depended, above all, on the sense of the east, the direction of the sunrise which was near enough due east at the spring equinox when the City Dionysia took place. The temple of Dionysus and sacrificial rituals in the sanctuary faced east in accordance with standard Greek practice.

From this resolution the author takes up in detail issues, sometimes controversial sometimes unexplored,drawn from scenes from almost every play in the corpus of Greek tragedy. In an amazingly learned tour de force he shows how the space of performance was organized along dual axes: up-down, east-west, inside-outside. The audience was at once outside and inside the performance.