Staged Narrative Poetics and the Messenger in Greek Tragedy [Hardcover]

The messenger who reports important action that has occurred offstage is a familiar inhabitant of Greek tragedy. A messenger informs us about the death of Jocasta and the blinding of Oedipus, the madness of Heracles, the slaughter of Aigisthos, and the death of Hippolytus, among other important events. Despite its prevalence, this conventional figure remains only little understood. Combining several critical approachesnarrative theory, genre study, and rhetorical analysisthis lucid study develops a synthetic view of the messenger of Greek tragedy, showing how this role illuminates some of the genre's most persistent concerns, especially those relating to language, knowledge, and the workings of tragic theater itself.

James Barrett gives close readings of several plays including Aeschylus'sPersians,Sophocles'ElectraandOedipus Tyrannus,and Euripides'BacchaeandRhesos.He traces the literary ancestry of the tragic messenger, showing that the messenger's narrative constitutes an unexplored site of engagement with Homeric epic, and that the role illuminates fifth-century b.c. experimentation with modes of speech. Breaking new ground in the study of Athenian tragedy, Barrett deepens our understanding of many central texts and of a form of theater that highlights the fragility and limits of human knowledge, a theme explored by its use of the messenger.

James Barrettis Research Associate and Faculty Fellow in Classics at Colby College.

I have greatly enjoyed reading this study not only because of its eminently readable style but above all because of its well presented and important argument. Making excellent use of existing scholarship on the tragic messenger, James Barrett manages to increase considerably our understanding of the place and function of this well-known, but often underrated figure. Thus, the relation between tragic and epic narrative, which so far had been described largely in terlÃF