Date of Award

1-1-2009

Language

English

Document Type

Dissertation

Degree Name

Doctor of Arts (DA)

Program

Humanistic Studies

Content Description

1 online resource (ii, 261 pages)

Dissertation/Thesis Chair

Charles Sheperdson

Committee Members

Sylvia Barnard, Pierre Joris, Gregory Stevens

Keywords

drama, emotion, Homer, philosophy, Sophocles, tragedy, Greek drama (Tragedy), Translating and interpreting, Greek language, Emotions in literature

Subject Categories

Classical Literature and Philology | Classics | Philosophy

Abstract

The history of interpreting Greek tragedy and the emotions is a history of logos. Tragedy, however, is poiēsis and speaks the language of muthos. This project approaches popular interpretations of tragedy and the emotions as problems of translation between various discourses: between Greek and English, past and present, historical and transhistorical, logos and muthos. After identifying the ways in which logos clashes with logos from Plato and Aristotle to Hegel and modern classicists, we suggest a new framework through which the emotional effect of tragedy, the tragic pleasure, can be understood: the thaumon and the deinon (wondrous and terrible).

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