The Flower of Suffering : : Theology, Justice, and the Cosmos in Aeschylus’ ›Oresteia‹ and Presocratic Thought / / Nuria Scapin.

• Superior document: Title is part of eBook package: De Gruyter DG Ebook Package English 2020
• VerfasserIn: Scapin, Nuria,
• Place / Publishing House: Berlin ;, Boston : : De Gruyter, , [2020]; ©2020
• Year of Publication: 2020
• Language: English
• Series: Trends in Classics - Supplementary Volumes , 97
• Physical Description: 1 online resource (XII, 264 p.)
• Other title: Frontmatter --; Contents --; Acknowledgments --; 0. Introduction --; Part I: Philosophical Theology in Presocratic Philosophy and the Oresteia --; 1. Explicit Theological Innovations: Xenophanes’ God --; 2. God and the Unity of Opposites: Heraclitus --; 3. Zeus Whoever He Is --; 4. Zeus as the Ultimate Principle behind Reality --; Part II: Cosmic Justice: between a Metaphysics of Harmony and a Metaphysics of Conflict --; 5. Cosmic Justice and the Metaphysics of Opposites: Anaximander, Heraclitus, and Parmenides --; 6. Dikê, Time, and Necessity in the Oresteia --; 7. Dikê as conflict in the Oresteia --; 8. Persuasive Dikê: from violence to kindness --; 9. A Cosmos of Opposites --; 10. Epilogue --; Bibliography --; Index of Sources
• Format: Mode of access: Internet via World Wide Web.
• ISBN: 9783110685633; 9783110696288; 9783110696271; 9783110659061; 9783110704716; 9783110704518; 9783110704839; 9783110704631
• ISSN: 1868-4785
• DOI: 10.1515/9783110685633
• Access: restricted access
• Hierarchical level: Monograph
• Statement of Responsibility: Nuria Scapin.

Greek tragedy occupies a prominent place in the development of early Greek thought. However, even within the partial renaissance of debates about tragedy’s roots in the popular thought of archaic Greece, its potential connection to the early philosophical tradition remains, with few exceptions, at the periphery of current interest. This book aims to show that our understanding of Aeschylus’ Oresteia is enhanced by seeing that the trilogy’s treatment of Zeus and Justice (Dikê) shares certain concepts, assumptions, categories of thought, and forms of expression with the surviving fragments and doxography of certain Presocratic thinkers (especially Anaximander, Xenophanes, Heraclitus, and Parmenides). By examining several aspects of the tragic trilogy in relation to Presocratic debates about theology and cosmic justice, it shows how such scrutiny may affect our understanding of the theological ‘tension’ and metaphysical assumptions underpinning the Oresteia’s dramatic narrative. Ultimately, it argues that Aeschylus bestows on the experience of human suffering, as it is given in the contradictory multiplicity of the world, the status of a profound form of knowledge: a meeting point between the human and divine spheres.