A01=Richard Halpern
action
adam smith
aeschylus
ancient greece
aristotle
art
arthur miller
Author_Richard Halpern
beckett
capital
capitalism
Category=DSB
death
doctor faustus
drama
eq_bestseller
eq_biography-true-stories
eq_isMigrated=1
eq_isMigrated=2
eq_nobargain
eq_non-fiction
georges bataille
hamlet
hannah arendt
happiness
hegel
marlowe
marx
meaning
milton
nonfiction
oresteia
performing arts
political economy
production
purpose
samson
sarah kane
shakespeare
social theory
theater
tragedy
Product details
- ISBN 9780226433653
- Weight: 624g
- Dimensions: 17 x 24mm
- Publication Date: 13 Mar 2017
- Publisher: The University of Chicago Press
- Publication City/Country: US
- Product Form: Hardback
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According to traditional accounts, the history of tragedy is itself tragic: following a miraculous birth in fifth-century Athens and a brilliant resurgence in the early modern period, tragic drama then falls into a marked decline. While disputing the notion that tragedy has died, this wide-ranging study argues that it faces an unprecedented challenge in modern times from an unexpected quarter: political economy. Since Aristotle, tragedy has been seen as uniquely exhibiting the importance of action for human happiness. Beginning with Adam Smith, however, political economy has claimed that the source of happiness is primarily production. Eclipse of Action examines the tense relations between action and production, doing and making, in playwrights from Aeschylus, Marlowe, Shakespeare, and Milton to Beckett, Arthur Miller, and Sarah Kane. Richard Halpern places these figures in conversation with works by Aristotle, Smith, Hegel, Marx, Hannah Arendt, Georges Bataille, and others in order to trace the long history of the ways in which economic thought and tragic drama interact.
Richard Halpern is the Erich Maria Remarque Professor of Literature at New York University. He is the author of several books, including Norman Rockwell: The Underside of Innocence, also published by the University of Chicago Press.
