Books by Nicole Loraux

Frontmatter -- Avant-propos -- Table des matières -- Une invention bien athénienne -- I. L'oraison funèbre dans la cité démocratique -- II. Le discours aux morts et la destination de la parole -- III. L'histoire athénienne d'Athènes -- IV. «K?? ????? ??? ... ?????????? ????????» -- V. L'oraison funèbre, genre politique -- VI. Sous le charme d'une idéalité -- Athènes imaginaire ou l'invention de la cité -- Notes critiques -- Bibliographie -- Index

An exploration of the roles of conflict and forgetting in ancient Athens.

Loraux presents a radical challenge to what has become the dominant view of tragedy in recent years: that tragedy is primarily a civic phenomenon.

"Nicole Loraux brilliantly elucidates how Athenian politics were 'gendered' in the Classical period. She investigates the Athenian state's interdiction of ritualized mourning by women, in a city where public mourning constituted a vital act of civic...

In ordinary life an Athenian woman was allowed no accomplishments beyond leading a quiet, exemplary existence as wife and mother. In Greek tragedy, however, women die violently and, through violence, master their fate. Through her reading of these texts, Loraux elicits an array of insights into Greek attitudes toward death, sexuality, and gender.