The Play of Space
Spatial Transformation in Greek Tragedy
Introduction
To underestimate, ignore and diminish space amounts to the
overestimation of texts, written matter, and writing systems, along with
the readable ... to the point of assigning these a monopoly on
intelligibility.
-Henri Lefebvre, The Production of Space
I BASE THIS BOOK on the simple premise that space is a proper value of the
theater, part and parcel of what it is and how it works. Until recently,
the function of space has gone relatively unnoticed in scholarship and
criticism of our earliest drama. Now that the subject has emerged, it
usually takes the form of a set of spatial binaries, reflecting the
influence of structuralism. We confront a spatially discrete world, in
which distinctions such as public-private, outside-inside, cultured-wild,
center-margin are applied to the spaces of tragedy. Armed with this
oppositional structure, critics argue (some with great subtlety) that
tragedy supports traditional gender differentiations and patriarchy; that
it exploits the basic polari ... read full excerpt from The Play of Space: Spatial Transformation in Greek Tragedy ebook
