LEADER 04548nam 2200745 a 450 001 9910456738403321 005 20200520144314.0 010 $a1-282-45825-6 010 $a9786612458255 010 $a1-4008-2591-1 024 7 $a10.1515/9781400825912 035 $a(CKB)2520000000006983 035 $a(EBL)483561 035 $a(OCoLC)650308118 035 $a(SSID)ssj0000427053 035 $a(PQKBManifestationID)11283888 035 $a(PQKBTitleCode)TC0000427053 035 $a(PQKBWorkID)10390846 035 $a(PQKB)11039656 035 $a(MiAaPQ)EBC483561 035 $a(MdBmJHUP)muse36365 035 $a(DE-B1597)446285 035 $a(OCoLC)979576699 035 $a(DE-B1597)9781400825912 035 $a(PPN)199244839 035 $a(Au-PeEL)EBL483561 035 $a(CaPaEBR)ebr10364753 035 $a(CaONFJC)MIL245825 035 $a(EXLCZ)992520000000006983 100 $a20030106d2004 uy 0 101 0 $aeng 135 $aur|n|---||||| 181 $ctxt 182 $cc 183 $acr 200 10$aReproducing Athens$b[electronic resource] $eMenander's comedy, democratic culture, and the Hellenistic city /$fSusan Lape 205 $aCourse Book 210 $aPrinceton, N.J. $cPrinceton University Press$dc2004 215 $a1 online resource (311 p.) 300 $aDescription based upon print version of record. 311 $a0-691-11583-4 320 $aIncludes bibliographical references (p. [255]-278) and indexes. 327 $t Frontmatter -- $tContents -- $tAbbreviations -- $t1. Narratives of Resistance and Romance -- $t2. Reproducing Democracy in Oligarchic and Autocratic Athens -- $t3. Making Citizens in Comedy and Court -- $t4. The Ethics of Democracy in Menander's Dyskolos -- $t5. The Politics of Sexuality in Drama and Democratic Athens -- $t6. The Mercenary Romance -- $t7. Trials of Masculinity in Democratic Discourse and Menander's Siky?nioi -- $t8. Conclusion: Inevitable Reproduction? -- $tBibliography -- $tAcknowledgments -- $tIndex Locorum -- $tGeneral Index 330 $aReproducing Athens examines the role of romantic comedy, particularly the plays of Menander, in defending democratic culture and transnational polis culture against various threats during the initial and most fraught period of the Hellenistic Era. Menander's romantic comedies--which focus on ordinary citizens who marry for love--are most often thought of as entertainments devoid of political content. Against the view, Susan Lape argues that Menander's comedies are explicitly political. His nationalistic comedies regularly conclude by performing the laws of democratic citizen marriage, thereby promising the generation of new citizens. His transnational comedies, on the other hand, defend polis life against the impinging Hellenistic kingdoms, either by transforming their representatives into proper citizen-husbands or by rendering them ridiculous, romantic losers who pose no real threat to citizen or city. In elaborating the political work of romantic comedy, this book also demonstrates the importance of gender, kinship, and sexuality to the making of democratic civic ideology. Paradoxically, by championing democratic culture against various Hellenistic outsiders, comedy often resists the internal status and gender boundaries on which democratic culture was based. Comedy's ability to reproduce democratic culture in scandalous fashion exposes the logic of civic inclusion produced by the contradictions in Athens's desperately politicized gender system. Combining careful textual analysis with an understanding of the context in which Menander wrote, Reproducing Athens profoundly changes the way we read his plays and deepens our understanding of Athenian democratic culture. 606 $aPolitics and literature$zGreece$zAthens 606 $aPolitical plays, Greek$xHistory and criticism 606 $aDemocracy in literature 606 $aComedy 607 $aAthens (Greece)$xIntellectual life 607 $aAthens (Greece)$xPolitics and government 607 $aAthens (Greece)$xIn literature 608 $aElectronic books. 615 0$aPolitics and literature 615 0$aPolitical plays, Greek$xHistory and criticism. 615 0$aDemocracy in literature. 615 0$aComedy. 676 $a882/.01 700 $aLape$b Susan$f1965-$0610000 801 0$bMiAaPQ 801 1$bMiAaPQ 801 2$bMiAaPQ 906 $aBOOK 912 $a9910456738403321 996 $aReproducing Athens$91105577 997 $aUNINA