Performance and Gender in Ancient Greece: Nondramatic Poetry in Its Setting

Eva Stehle

Published by Princeton University Press 1997

Performance and Gender in Ancient Greece

Nondramatic Poetry in Its Setting

Eva Stehle

Volume 331 in the series Princeton Legacy Library

https://doi.org/10.1515/9781400864294

Overview
Contents

About this book

"Like love, Greek poetry was not for hereafter," writes Eva Stehle, "but shared in the present mirth and laughter of festival, ceremony, and party." Describing how men and women, young and adult, sang or recited in public settings, Stehle treats poetry as an occasion for the performer's self-presentation. She discusses a wide range of pre-Hellenistic poetry, including Sappho's, compares how men and women speak about themselves, and constructs an innovative approach to performance that illuminates gender ideology. After considering the audience and the function of different modes of performance--community, bardic, and closed groups--Stehle explores this poetry as gendered speech, which interacts with performers' bodily presence to create social identities for the speakers. Texts for female choral performers reveal how women in public spoke in order to disavow the power of their speech and their sexual power. Male performers, however, could manipulate gender as an ideological system: they sometimes claimed female identity in addition to male, associated themselves with triumph over a defeated (mythical) female figure, or asserted their disconnection from women, thereby creating idealized social identities for themselves. A final chapter concentrates on the written poetry of Sappho, which borrows the communicative strategy of writing in order to create a fictional speaker distinct from the singer, a "Sappho" whom others could re-create in imagination.

Originally published in 1997.

The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback and hardcover editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905.

Reviews

Stehle has set about the important and arduous task of situating existing texts and text fragments of ancient Green nondramatic poetry in their performative contexts . . . This is a thorough analysis . . . clearly written and compelling, a valuable resource for classics, gender, and performance studies scholars and students.

"Brilliant.... This is one of the most important books on Greek lyric for many years, and it will make a lasting contribution."—Ian Rutherford

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Frontmatter Publicly Available Download PDF	i
Contents Publicly Available Download PDF	vii
Preface Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	ix
Abbreviations Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	xiii
Introduction Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	3
CHAPTER ONE. Community Poetry Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	26
CHAPTER TWO. Women in Performance in the Community Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	71
CHAPTER THREE. Male Performers in the Community Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	119
CHAPTER FOUR. Bardic Poetry Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	170
CHAPTER FIVE. The Symposium Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	213
CHAPTER SIX. Sappho's Circle Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	262
Conclusion Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	319
Appendix: Chronology of Primary Sources Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	326
Transliterated Terms Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	329
Bibliography Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	331
Index Locorum Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	353
General Index Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	357

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