TY - BOOK ID - 2955373 TI - Reproducing Athens PY - 2009 SN - 0691115834 9786612458255 1400825911 1282458256 9781400825912 9780691115832 PB - Princeton, NJ DB - UniCat KW - Blijspel KW - Comedie KW - Comedy KW - Comédie KW - Democracy in literature KW - Democratie in de literatuur KW - Démocratie dans la littérature KW - Komedie KW - Politics and literature KW - Political plays, Greek KW - Democracy in literature. KW - Politique et littérature KW - Théâtre politique grec KW - History and criticism. KW - Histoire et critique KW - Menander, KW - Athens (Greece) KW - Athènes (Grèce) KW - In literature KW - Politics and government KW - Dans la littérature KW - Politique et gouvernement KW - Comedy. KW - Knowledge KW - Political and social views. KW - Intellectual life. KW - Politics and government. KW - In literature. KW - Politique et littérature KW - Théâtre politique grec KW - Démocratie dans la littérature KW - Athènes (Grèce) KW - Dans la littérature KW - Comic literature KW - Literature, Comic KW - Literature KW - Literature and politics KW - Political aspects KW - Menandros, KW - Athens, Menander of KW - Menandro, KW - Ménandre, KW - Menandorosu, KW - מינאנדרוס KW - Aḟiny (Greece) KW - Atene (Greece) KW - Atʻēnkʻ (Greece) KW - Ateny (Greece) KW - Athen (Greece) KW - Athēna (Greece) KW - Athēnai (Greece) KW - Athènes (Greece) KW - Athinai (Greece) KW - Athīnā (Greece) KW - Drama KW - Wit and humor KW - History and criticism KW - Menander of Athens KW - Political and social views KW - Greece KW - Political plays [Greek ] KW - Intellectual life KW - Αθήνα (Greece) KW - Менандр, KW - Menander KW - Menander Comicus KW - Menandro KW - Ménandre KW - Menandros UR - https://www.unicat.be/uniCat?func=search&query=sysid:2955373 AB - Reproducing Athens examines the role of romantic comedy, particularly the plays of Menander, in defending democratic culture and transnational polis culture against various threats during the initial and most fraught period of the Hellenistic Era. Menander's romantic comedies--which focus on ordinary citizens who marry for love--are most often thought of as entertainments devoid of political content. Against the view, Susan Lape argues that Menander's comedies are explicitly political. His nationalistic comedies regularly conclude by performing the laws of democratic citizen marriage, thereby promising the generation of new citizens. His transnational comedies, on the other hand, defend polis life against the impinging Hellenistic kingdoms, either by transforming their representatives into proper citizen-husbands or by rendering them ridiculous, romantic losers who pose no real threat to citizen or city. In elaborating the political work of romantic comedy, this book also demonstrates the importance of gender, kinship, and sexuality to the making of democratic civic ideology. Paradoxically, by championing democratic culture against various Hellenistic outsiders, comedy often resists the internal status and gender boundaries on which democratic culture was based. Comedy's ability to reproduce democratic culture in scandalous fashion exposes the logic of civic inclusion produced by the contradictions in Athens's desperately politicized gender system. Combining careful textual analysis with an understanding of the context in which Menander wrote, Reproducing Athens profoundly changes the way we read his plays and deepens our understanding of Athenian democratic culture. ER -