Literary Life and Performative Arts in Antiquity

The course follows two parallel paths:
1) historical overview
- oral epic in preliterary Greece;
- development of writing, appearance of books and readers; writing techiniques and circulation of texts; private and public reading, libraries, public recitations;
- development of perfomative arts, with a focus on 5th century Athens, on the Hellenistic new comedy, on republican Rome (comedy, mimus, fabula Atellana and related genres in Italy of the subsequent eras -- commedia dell'arte) and on Roman empire (literary and musical festivals, theatre, gladiatorial games and circus).
2) critical assessment based on some crucial texts (Plato, Aristotle, early Christian writers, especially Tertullian, On the Spectacles) and focusing on sociological, philosophical/phenomenological and psychological aspects of reading and of reception of theatre and various forms of spectacle.