New Release Books by Isabelle Torrance

This volume brings together a group of interdisciplinary experts who demonstrate that Aeschylus' Seven Against Thebes is a text of continuing relevance and value for exploring ancient, contemporary and comparative issues of war and its attendant trauma. The volume features contributions from an international cast of experts, as well as a conversation with a retired U.S. Army Lt. Col., giving her perspectives on the blending of reality and fiction in Aeschylus' war tragedies and on the potential of Greek tragedy to speak to contemporary veterans. This book is a fascinating resource for anyone interested in Aeschylus, Greek tragedy and its reception, and war literature.

In this new student introduction to a Greek tragedy, Isabelle Torrance looks at what makes Iphigenia among the Taurians a successful tragedy in ancient Greek terms, and how dramatic excitement is achieved through the exotic setting, the cast of characters, and the chorus. Assuming no knowledge of Greek, and with students in mind, the central themes of ethnicity and gender relations are examined to show how Euripides manipulates established stereotypes. The play was one of Aristotle's favourites and his enthusiasm derived from the fact that, in spite of its ostensibly happy ending, the play presents the audience with an exquisitely constructed reversal of events: when Iphigenia recognizes that she has been about to sacrifice her long-lost brother, kin-murder is avoided and the plot turns into an escape drama. Other significant concerns of the play surround ritual and the gods, and these are discussed to highlight how the drama asks probing theological questions. Finally, the vast reception history of the play in a variety of genres, such as ancient comedy, Roman philosophy, European opera, and 20th century theatre, is sketched out from antiquity to the present day.

One of our earliest surviving Greek tragedies, Aeschylus' Seven Against Thebes is an extraordinarily rich poetic text. It dramatises the civil war between the sons of Oedipus Polynices - the exile, and Eteocles - reigning king of Thebes. Polynices marches on Thebes to regain his throne along with six other champion warriors and their armies, but the expedition is doomed, and the meaning of Oedipus' enigmatic curse on his sons ultimately becomes clear through their simultaneous fratricide and the extinction of the Theban house. This book places the drama within the context of the connected trilogy of which it was a part. It investigates the play's tensions between city and family and the omnipresence of curse and ritual within the religious and political environment of fifth century Greece. The drama's focus on the world of male warriors, and its stark opposition of the sexes through the female Chorus, is analysed in terms of warrior ideology in epic and Greek understanding of appropriate behaviour. Finally, it explores the complex legacy of the play through its influence on Sophocles and Euripides, and shows how the drama's condemnation of civil war has been exploited as an analogue for events in modern history. This is part of a series of accessible introductions to ancient tragedies. Each volume discusses the main themes of a play and the central developments in modern criticism, while also addressing the play's historical context and the history of its performance and adaptation.

Metapoetry in Euripides is the first detailed study of the self-conscious literary devices applied within Euripidean drama and how these are interwoven with issues of thematic importance, whether social, theological, or political. In the volume, Torrance argues that Euripides employed a complex system of metapoetic strategies in order to draw the audience's attention to the novelty of his compositions. The metapoetic strategies discussed include intertextual allusions to earlier poetic texts (especially to Homer, Aeschylus and Sophocles) which are often developed around unusual and memorable language or imagery, deployment of recognizable trigger words referring to plot construction, novelties or secondary status, and self-conscious references to fiction implied through allusion to writing. Torrance also looks at and compares metapoetic techniques used in tragedy, satyr-drama, and old comedy to demonstrate that the Greek tragedians commonly exploited metapoetic strategies, and that metapoetry is more pervasive in Euripides than in the other tragedians. While Euripides shares some metapoetic techniques with old comedy, these remain implicit in his tragedies (but not in his satyr-dramas).

This ebook is a selective guide designed to help scholars and students of the ancient world find reliable sources of information by directing them to the best available scholarly materials in whatever form or format they appear from books, chapters, and journal articles to online archives, electronic data sets, and blogs. Written by a leading international authority on the subject, the ebook provides bibliographic information supported by direct recommendations about which sources to consult and editorial commentary to make it clear how the cited sources are interrelated. A reader will discover, for instance, the most reliable introductions and overviews to the topic, and the most important publications on various areas of scholarly interest within this topic. In classics, as in other disciplines, researchers at all levels are drowning in potentially useful scholarly information, and this guide has been created as a tool for cutting through that material to find the exact source you need. This ebook is just one of many articles from Oxford Bibliographies Online: Classics, a continuously updated and growing online resource designed to provide authoritative guidance through the scholarship and other materials relevant to the study of classics. Oxford Bibliographies Online covers most subject disciplines within the social science and humanities, for more information visit www.aboutobo.com.