Bosher Kathryn G. - Greek Theater in Ancient Sicily

Greek Theater in Ancient Sicily

Studies of ancient theater have traditionally taken Athens as their creative center. In this book, however, the lens is widened to examine the origins and development of ancient drama, and particularly comedy, within a Sicilian and southern Italian context. Each chapter explores a different category of theatrical evidence, from the literary (fragments of Epicharmus and cult traditions) to the artistic (phlyax vases) and the archaeological (theater buildings). Kate Bosher argues that, unlike in classical Athens, the golden days of theatrical production on Sicily coincided with the rule of tyrants, rather than with democratic interludes. Moreover, this was not accidental, but plays and the theater were an integral part of the tyrants propaganda system. The volume will appeal widely to classicists and to theater historians.

KATHRYN G. BOSHER was Assistant Professor of Classical Studies at Northwestern University until her death in 2013. She was editor of Theater Outside Athens: Drama in Greek Sicily and South Italy (Cambridge, 2012) and co-editor of The Oxford Handbook of Greek Drama in the Americas (Oxford, 2015).

EDITH HALL is Professor of Classics at King s College London.

CLEMENTE MARCONI is James R. McCredie Professor of Greek Art and Archaeology at the Institute of Fine Arts, New York University, and Professor of Classical Archaeology at the University of Milan.

Greek Theater in Ancient Sicily

Kathryn G. Bosher

Northwestern University, Illinois

Edited By

Edith Hall

King s College London

Clemente Marconi

New York University and Universit degli Studi di Milano

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Information on this title: www.cambridge.org/9781108493871

DOI: 10.1017/9781108663878

Kathryn G. Bosher, Edith Hall, Clemente Marconi, and LaDale Winling 2021

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First published 2021

A catalogue record for this publication is available from the British Library.

ISBN 978-1-108-49387-1 Hardback

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Contents

Figures

Maps

Tables

Foreword

When Kathryn Bosher died in 2013, her book manuscript remained unpublished. Typically, Kate had been so generous towards others with her time that she had focused on collaborative projects rather than publications authored by her alone. She was the driving force behind the interdisciplinary Classicizing Chicago project at Northwestern University. She was the initiator of the magisterial Oxford Handbook of Greek Drama in the Americas , of which the other editors were Fiona Macintosh, Justine McConnell, and Patrice Rankine; this was published by Oxford University Press in 2015, two years after her death.