Entering The Agon. Dissent and Authority in Homer, Historiography, and Tragedy.

Aus der Bibliothek von Prof. Wolfgang Haase, langj�igem Herausgeber der ANRW und des International Journal of the Classical Tradition (IJCT) / From the library of Prof. Wolfgang Haase, long-time editor of ANRW and the International Journal of the Classical Tradition (IJCT). - sehr guter Zustand / very good condition - This book investigates one of the most characteristic and prominent features of ancient Greek literature - the scene of debate or agon, in which with varying degrees of formality characters square up to each other and engage in a contest of words - and sets out for the first time to trace its changing representations through Homeric epic, historiography, and tragedy. Combining literary dialogic theory with sociological approaches towards structure, it makes the claim that debate is best understood in relation to an institutional framework, in which issues of authority and dissent are variously set out and worked through. Engaging with key recent scholarship, it shows that the Homeric poems establish, and scrutinize, the assembly as an institution which accommodates dissent, in line with an understanding of epic narrative as foundational; that the historians' marginal status as writers in an oral culture manifests itself in their representing debate as a challenge to the utility of public institutions,-and that tragedy marks the formal institutionalization of dissent in its adversarial structure with an onus on speaking back, offering a new way of thinking about tragic politics in terms of the process by which dissent is enacted and managed. Aimed at both scholar and student, including anyone interested in the origins of political thought, this book demonstrates not only the fundamental importance of debate to these genres, but also the ways representations of debate reproduce an agonistic mentality which intersects with and informs the broader cultural construction of a citizen community. ISBN 9780199609284