The anatomy of dance discourse : literary and philosophical approaches to dance in the Later Graeco-Roman world /
This book makes an original contribution to the newly thriving field of ancient Greek and Roman performance and dance studies. It offers a better grasp of ancient perceptions and conceptualizations of dance through the lens of literary texts. It gives attention not only to the highly encoded genre o...
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| Format: | eBook |
| Language: | English |
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Oxford, OX :
Oxford University Press,
[2018]
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| Edition: | First edition. |
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| Online Access: | Connect to the full text of this electronic book |
| Summary: | This book makes an original contribution to the newly thriving field of ancient Greek and Roman performance and dance studies. It offers a better grasp of ancient perceptions and conceptualizations of dance through the lens of literary texts. It gives attention not only to the highly encoded genre of pantomime, which dominates the stages in the Roman Empire, but also to acrobatic, non-representational dances. It is distinctive in its juxtaposition of ancient theorizations of dance with literary depictions of dance scenes. Part I explores the contact zones of ancient dance discourse with other areas of cultural expression, especially language and poetry, rhetoric and art, and philosophy and religion. Part II discusses ekphraseis of dance performances in prose and poetry. The main bulk of the book focuses roughly on the second century ce (discussing Plutarch, Lucian of Samosata, Athenaeus, the apocryphal Acts of John, Longus, and Apuleius), with excursions to Xenophon and Nonnus. Dance is performative and dynamic, and its way to cognition and action is physical experience. This book argues that dance was understood as a practice in which human beings, whether as dancers or spectators, are confronted with the irreducible reality of their own physical existence, which is constantly changing. |
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| Physical Description: | 1 online resource (x, 339 pages) : illustrations |
| Bibliography: | Includes bibliographical references and index. |
| ISBN: | 9780192534781 0192534785 9780191845543 019184554X |