According to traditional accounts, the history of tragedy is itself tragic: following a miraculous birth in fifth-century Athens and a brilliant resurgence in the early modern period, tragic drama then falls into a marked decline. While disputing the notion that tragedy has died, this wide-ranging study argues that it faces an unprecedented challenge in modern times from an unexpected quarter: political economy. Since Aristotle, tragedy has been seen as uniquely exhibiting the importance of action for human happiness. Beginning with Adam Smith, however, political economy has claimed that the source of happiness is primarily production. Eclipse of Action examines the tense relations between action and production, doing and making, in playwrights from Aeschylus, Marlowe, Shakespeare, and Milton to Beckett, Arthur Miller, and Sarah Kane. Richard Halpern places these figures in conversation with works by Aristotle, Smith, Hegel, Marx, Hannah Arendt, Georges Bataille, and others in order to trace the long history of the ways in which economic thought and tragic drama interact.
Product Identifiers
Publisher
The University of Chicago Press
ISBN-13
9780226433653
eBay Product ID (ePID)
233877774
Product Key Features
Book Title
Eclipse of Action: Tragedy and Political Economy
Author
Richard Halpern
Format
Hardcover
Language
English
Topic
Literature
Publication Year
2017
Number of Pages
336 Pages
Dimensions
Item Height
240mm
Item Width
167mm
Item Weight
630g
Additional Product Features
Title_Author
Richard Halpern
Country/Region of Manufacture
United States
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