The tomb of Oedipus Why Greek tragedies were not tragic

William Marx, 1966-

Book - 2022

"If Greek tragedies are meant to be so tragic, why do they so often end so well? Here starts the story of a long and incredible misunderstanding. Out of the hundreds of tragedies that were performed, only 32 were preserved in full. Who chose them and why? Why are the lost ones never taken into account? This extremely unusual scholarly book tells us an Umberto Eco-like story about the lost tragedies. By arguing that they would have given a radically different picture, William Marx makes us think in completely new ways about one of the major achievements of Western culture. In this very readable, stimulating, lively, and even sometimes funny book, he explores parallels with Japanese theatre, resolves the enigma of catharsis, sheds a new ...light on psychoanalysis. In so doing, he tells also the story of the misreadings of our modernity, which disconnected art from the body, the place, and gods. Two centuries ago philosophers transformed Greek tragedies into an ideal archetype, now they want to read them as self-help handbooks, but all are equally wrong: Greek tragedy is definitely not what you think, and we may never understand it, but this makes it matter all the more to us." --

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Subjects
Genres
Criticism, interpretation, etc
Published
London ; Brooklyn, NY : Verso 2022.
Language
English
French
Main Author
William Marx, 1966- (author)
Other Authors
Nicholas Elliott (translator)
Physical Description
xi, 212 pages ; 21 cm
Bibliography
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN
9781788736138
  • Introduction: How Does Greek Tragedy Matter to Us?
  • Prologue and Parodos: Boundaries and Transgression
  • 1. The Place
  • First and Second Episodes: Oracles and Liberty
  • 2. The Idea
  • Third, Fourth and Fifth Episodes: Terror and Pity
  • 3. The Body
  • Sixth Episode and Exodos: Death and Transfiguration
  • 4. The God
  • Epilogue: On the Unexplainable
  • Acknowledgements
  • Index
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review

Marx, a comparative literature professor at the Collège de France, refreshes ancient literature and the concept of tragedy in this intelligent work of criticism. A "chasm of misunderstanding has opened" between ancient Greek poetry and modern readers, Marx argues, because it references places and practices now lost. Using Sophocles' Oedipus at Colonus as his exemplar, Marx demonstrates how contemporary interpretations of tragedy have distanced modern readers from the original Greek corpus, of which only around 5% survives. The confusion, he argues, arises in part from the difficulty Christian literary theorists had in understanding the role of the pagan divine, and Marx traces modern understandings of the term as meaning a "major misfortune" from the German Romantics and Nietzsche. Marx attempts to demystify "the absolute strangeness of Greek tragedy" by examining parallels in Noh theater, Freudian psychoanalysis, and Catholic Mass--the ritual reenactment of Christ's death, Marx suggests, is a close remnant to a concept of tragedy as the sacrifice of a scapegoat. Elliott's translation is smooth and elegant, matching the sophistication of Marx's thought as he reinvigorates Greek tragedy as "not about something that happens, but someone who arrives." This accomplished, provocative work of literary criticism offers much to consider. (Oct.)

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