Greek and Roman Actors: Aspects of an Ancient Profession

by Pat Easterling, Edith Hall

Overview

This series of twenty complementary essays by experts in the field explores the art, social status, reputation and image of the ancient actor in the Greek and Roman worlds, from the sixth century B.C. to the Byzantine period. It covers tragedy, comedy, mime and pantomime and offers a full overview of the most important ancient evidence. In some essays new questions are asked, and in others, completely new evidence is offered. Numerous illustrations are included and all Greek and Latin passages are translated.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780521651400
Publisher:	Cambridge University Press
Publication date:	09/26/2002
Pages:	544
Product dimensions:	6.34(w) x 9.29(h) x 1.30(d)

About the Author

Pat Easterling is Emeritus Regius Professor of Greek at the University of Cambridge, a Fellow of Newnham College and a Fellow of the British Academy. She was Professor of Greek at University College London from 1987 to 1994, and has also served as President of the Classical Association (1989/1990) and the Hellenic Society (1996–1999). In addition to serving as General Editor of the Cambridge Greek and Latin Classics ever since its foundation over thirty years ago, she has published an edition within this series of Sophocles' Trachiniae (1982), co-edited, with B. M. W. Knox, Volume 1 of the Cambridge History of Classical Literature (1985) and edited The Cambridge Companion to Greek Tragedy (1997). She is currently working on an edition of Sophocles' Oedipus at Colonus for the Cambridge Greek and Latin Classics series.

Edith Hall is Professor of Greek Cultural History at the University of Durham and has previously taught at the Universities of Cambridge, Reading and Oxford. She is Co-Director of the Archive of Performances of Greek and Roman Drama at the University of Oxford and author of Inventing the Barbarian (1989), editor of Aeschylus' Persians (1996) and co-editor of Medea in Performance (2000).

Table of Contents

List of illustrations; List of contributors; Preface; Acknowledgements; List of abbreviations; Maps; Part I. The Art of the Actor: 1. The singing actors of antiquity Edith Hall; 2. The musicians among the actors Peter Wilson; 3. The use of the body by actors in tragedy and satyr-play Kostas Valakas; 4. Towards a reconstruction of performance style Richard Green; 5. Kallippides on the floor-sweepings: the limits of realism in classical acting and performance styles Eric Csapo; 6. Looking for the actor's art in Aristotle G. M. Sifakis; 7. Acting, action and words in New Comedy Eric Handley; 8. 'Acting down': the ideology of Hellenistic performance Richard Hunter; Part II. The Professional World: 9. Nothing to do with the technītai of Dionysus? Jane L. Lightfoot; 10. Actors and actor-managers at Rome in the time of Plautus and Terence Peter G. McC. Brown; 11. The masks on the propylon of the Sebasteion at Aphrodisias John Jory; 12. Images of performance: new evidence from Ephesus Charlotte Roueché; 13. Female entertainers in late antiquity Ruth Webb; 14. Acting in the Byzantine theatre: evidence and problems Walter Puchner; Part III. The Idea of the Actor: 15. Actor as icon Pat Easterling; 16. Scholars versus actors: text and performance in the Greek tragic scholia Thomas Falkner; 17. Orator and/et actor Elaine Fantham; 18. Acting and self-actualisation in imperial Rome: some death scenes Catharine Edwards; 19. The subjectivity of Greek performance Ismene Lada-Richards; 20. The ancient actor's presence since the Renaissance Edith Hall; Glossary; List of works cited; Index of major ancient passages cited; General index.

Editorial Reviews

"A treasure house of knowledge and scholarship...Easterling and Hall guarantee that every reader will come away more knowledgeable about this incredibly varied and easily misunderstood profession." Phoenix

"There is much to be thankful for in this project: research of extremely high quality and metholdological sophistication , and a range of topics and temporal scope. Suggestions for further reading, maps, a rather laconic glossary, and over sixty illustrations make this an accessible collection. The two editors have performed an exceptional feat in maneuvering the expertise of a diverse group of scholars into such a well-knit and informative volume." Theatre Journal

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