Lawcourt Dramas

This chapter takes the argument out of the theatre and into the lawcourts, one of the contexts which most clearly reveals the increasingly theatrical tenor (or ‘cast’) of Athenian society at large and of its public discourses. In a survey of the corpus of legal oratory from classical Athens, it is argued that the analogy between a trial and a theatrical performance was close and multilayered. There were strong similarities between the writing of roles for a play and the composition of speeches for delivery in court; there was a considerable degree of overlap between what was expected of tragic actors and litigants in terms of vocal performance.

Aesthetics · Analogy · Argument (complex analysis) · Art · Composition (language) · Linguistics · Literature · Classical Antiquity Studies · Law in Society and Culture · Medicine · Philosophy