1. Introduction 2. Fear, interest and honor 3. The spirit and its expression 4. The ancient world 5. Medieval Europe 6. From Sun King to Revolution 7. Imperialism and World War I 8. World War II 9. Hitler to Bush and beyond 10. General findings and conclusions.

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Nothing to Do with Dionysus?: Athenian Drama in Its Social Context

A Cultural Theory of International Relations

PREFACE ix ABBREVIATIONS xiii INTRODUCTION Defining Criticism from Homer to Aristotle 1 PART I ARCHAIC ROOTS OF CLASSICAL AESTHETICS 23 ONE Table Talkand Symposium 25 TWO Xenophanes and the "Ancient Quarrel" 46 THREE Allegory and the Traditions of Epic Interpretation 67 PART II: THE INVENTION OF POETRY 91 FOUR Song and Artifact: Simonidean Monuments 93 FIVE Singer and Craftsman in Pindar and Bacchylides 113 SIX The Origin of the Word "Poet" 131 PART III: TOWARD A THEORY OF POETRY 159 SEVEN Materialist Poetics: Democritus and Gorgias 161 EIGHT Literary Culture and Democracy: Poets and Teachers in Classical Athens 188 NINE Literary Culture in Plato's Republic :The Sound of Ideology 209 PART IV LITERARY THEORY IN THE FOURTH CENTURY 227 TEN The Invention of Literature: Theories of Prose and the Theory of Poetry 229 ELEVEN Laws of Poetry: Genre and the Literary System 250 TWELVE The Rise of the Critic: Poetic Contests from Homer to Aristotle 272 EPILOGUE 294 BIBLIOGRAPHY 297 INDEX OF PASSAGES ISCUSSED 331

The Origins of Criticism: Literary Culture and Poetic Theory in Classical Greece

How and why did the Western tradition of political theorizing arise in Athens during the late 5th and 4th centuries BC? By interweaving intellectual history with political philosophy and literary analysis, Josiah Ober argues that the tradition orginated in a high-stakes debate about democracy. Since elite Greek intellectuals tended to assume that ordinary men were incapable of ruling themselves, the longevity and resilience of Athenian popular rule presented a problem: how to explain the apparent success of a regime "irrationally" based on the inherent wisdom and practical efficacy of decisions made by non-elite citizens? The problem became acute after two oligarchic coups d'etat in the late 5th century BC. The generosity and statesmanship that democrats showed after regaining political power contrasted starkly with the oligarchs' violence and corruption. Since it was no longer self-evident that "better men" meant "better government", critics of democracy sought new arguments to explain the relationship among politics, ethics and morality. The author of this text offers readings of the political works of Thucydides, Plato and Aristotle among others, placing them in the context of a competitive community of dissident writers. These thinkers struggled against both democratic ideology and intellectual rivals to articulate the best and most influential criticism of popular rule.

Political Dissent in Democratic Athens: Intellectual Critics of Popular Rule

Introduction: The other Athenians 1. The self-interested citizen 2. The reluctant conscript 3. The cowardly hoplite 4. The artful tax dodger.

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The Bad Citizen in Classical Athens

After dismissing various possible approaches to the question of audience competence in fifth- and fourth-century Athens, this article proposes to tackle this important and notorious problem with a novel strategy that is not ?top?down? but ?bottom?up?, starting with spectators rather than plays and focusing on the bottom-line of expertise which can be taken to be shared by the majority of audience members. An umbrella-notion of ?theatrical competence? is established before two central characteristics of drama performed in Athens are exploited: the participation of spectators in the citizen-chorus at the Great Dionysia, and the implications for the competence issue of frequent exposure to an art form which is as formally conservative as preserved Attic drama. What emerges is a model of stratified decoding by spectators (elite and non-elite) who share a considerable level of theatrical competence. In a final step, this model is applied to a number of case studies taken from fifth-century comedy.

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Nothing to Do with Dionysus?: Athenian Drama in Its Social Context

Citations

A Cultural Theory of International Relations

The Origins of Criticism: Literary Culture and Poetic Theory in Classical Greece

Political Dissent in Democratic Athens: Intellectual Critics of Popular Rule

The Bad Citizen in Classical Athens

The competence of theatre audiences in fifth- and fourth-century Athens

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