Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Preface
- 1 The drama of logos
- 2 The language of appropriation
- 3 The city of words
- 4 Relations and relationships
- 5 Sexuality and difference
- 6 Text and tradition
- 7 Mind and madness
- 8 Blindness and insight
- 9 Sophistry, philosophy, rhetoric
- 10 Genre and transgression
- 11 Performance and performability
- Bibliography
- Index
2 - The language of appropriation
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 08 February 2010
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Preface
- 1 The drama of logos
- 2 The language of appropriation
- 3 The city of words
- 4 Relations and relationships
- 5 Sexuality and difference
- 6 Text and tradition
- 7 Mind and madness
- 8 Blindness and insight
- 9 Sophistry, philosophy, rhetoric
- 10 Genre and transgression
- 11 Performance and performability
- Bibliography
- Index
Summary
Were wisdom gauged alike of all and honour, no strife of warring words were known to men. But ‘fairness’, ‘equal rights’ – men know them not … they name their names: no being they have as things.
EURIPIDESIn the first chapter, at several points I referred to the difficulties of the term dikē in the Oresteia. In this chapter, I intend to consider in more depth the notions surrounding this word and its cognates in the trilogy. This discussion is important for several reasons. First, after my investigation of the exchange of language with its focus on the process of interpretation and understanding, it is interesting to attempt to follow through the shifts and plays of meaning through which a word passes in the clashes of persuasive rhetoric and deceitful manipulation. I discussed language's role in the ordering of social relations and language as the means and matter of social transgression. How does a prime term of social order, dikē, relate to this discussion? Secondly, the concept of dikē, few would disagree, is a major concern in the Oresteia. This concern has formed the basis for many literary critics' readings of the trilogy. As well as investigating the various influential views put forward on this topic, it is important to see in what ways the focus on language changes our appreciation of this debate. This leads to my third reason: the different critics' attempts at interpreting the Oresteia in the light of this set of terms will offer an important insight into a major problem of reading Greek tragedy.
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- Chapter
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- Reading Greek Tragedy , pp. 33 - 56Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 1986
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