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The Evolution of Tyrant Tropes in Greek Tragedy

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thesis
posted on 2023-09-25, 02:09 authored by Charlie Hann

Tyranny (tyrannis) is a name given to a type of Greek monarchy that came into being in the seventh century B.C.E. The democratisation of Greece and the transference of aristocratic ideas of equality and liberty to the whole citizen population led the vilification of tyranny as the opposite of democracy and its extensive use as a foil for democracy in Athenian politics. This political idea made its way into literature, including tragedy where it was one of several important anachronistic political ideas. The demonization of the tyrant also led to the development of tropes to create the stereotype of the tyrant. These tropes are catalogued in Plato and Aristotle and widely recognised in Herodotus, but as Lanza (1977) and Seaford (2003) have pointed out, they also occur in tragedy, to the same extent as they do in prose. The tropes can roughly be split into two groups – those that are based on real power-conserving strategies and those that were created to characterise the tyrant as a moral monster.

History

Copyright Date

2020-01-01

Date of Award

2020-01-01

Publisher

Te Herenga Waka—Victoria University of Wellington

Rights License

CC BY-SA 4.0

Degree Discipline

Classics

Degree Grantor

Te Herenga Waka—Victoria University of Wellington

Degree Level

Masters

Degree Name

Master of Arts

ANZSRC Type Of Activity code

1 PURE BASIC RESEARCH

Victoria University of Wellington Item Type

Awarded Research Masters Thesis

Language

en_NZ

Victoria University of Wellington School

School of Art History, Classics and Religious Studies

Advisors

Kierstead, James