The City and the Stage

Performance, Genre, and Gender in Plato's Laws

Marcus Folch

Presents a systematic study of Plato's final statement on poetry, performance, mimetic art, and literary criticism
Brings an interdisciplinary perspective to the study of ancient philosophy
Advances a debate on the utility of speech act and performance theory in the study of Plato and other ancient authors
Encourages an ongoing reappraisal among Classicists of ancient philosophy in its historical and literary contexts

The City and the Stage

Performance, Genre, and Gender in Plato's Laws

Marcus Folch

Description

What role did poetry, music, song, and dance play in the social and political life of the ancient Greek city? How did philosophy respond to, position itself against, and articulate its own ambitions in relation to the poetic tradition? How did ancient philosophers theorize and envision alternatives to fourth-century Athenian democracy? The City and the Stage poses such questions in a study of the Laws, Plato's last, longest, and unfinished philosophical dialogue. Reading the Laws in its literary, historical, and philosophical contexts, this book offers a new interpretation of Plato's final dialogue with the Greek poetic tradition and an exploration of the dialectic between philosophy and mimetic art. Although Plato is often thought hostile to poetry and famously banishes mimetic art from the ideal city of the Republic, The City and the Stage shows that in his final work Plato made a striking about-face, proposing to rehabilitate Athenian performance culture and envisaging a city, Magnesia, in which poetry, music, song, and dance are instrumental in the cultivation of philosophical virtues. Plato's views of the performative properties of music, dance, and poetic language, and the psychological underpinnings of aesthetic experience receive systematic treatment in this book for the first time. The social role of literary criticism, the power of genres to influence a society and lead to specific kinds of constitutions, performance as a mechanism of gender construction, and the position of women in ancient Greek performance culture are central themes throughout this study. A wide-ranging examination of ancient Greek philosophy and fourth-century intellectual culture, The City and the Stage will be of significance to anyone interested in ancient Greek literature, performance, and Platonic philosophy in its historical contexts.

The City and the Stage

Performance, Genre, and Gender in Plato's Laws

Marcus Folch

Introduction: Performance and the Second-Best City

Abstract i
1 Introduction i
2 An Ancient Quarrel Revisited xiii
3 The Laws, Its City, Its Scope xxxiii
4 Paradigmatism and the 'Second-Best' Politeia xlv
5 The Correct Method (orthê methodos) of Cultural Criticism lii
6 Conclusions lx
Notes lxiv

Chapter 1. Marionettes of the Soul: Performance and the Psychology of Mousikê in Plato's Laws

Abstract 1
1.1 Introduction 2
1.2 Theoretical Orientations: Performance, Performativity, Political Dissent 14
1.3 Of Puppets and Passions: The Moral Psychology of Performance in Plato's Laws 34
1.4 Virtue, Education, Aesthetic Response: A Model of Performativity 57
1.5 Inscription and the Making of a Philosophical Performance Culture 74
1.6 Conclusions 94
Notes 95

Chapter 2. The Chorus and the Critic: Literary Criticism, Theatrocracy, and the Performance of Philosophy

Abstract 104
2.1 Introduction 105
2.2 Critical Errors: Genre, Theatrocracy, and the Unideal City 111
2.3 Setting the Stage: Pleasure, Judgment, and the Performance of Philosophy 132
2.4 Beyond the Choral Muse: The Chorus of Dionysus and the Metaphysics of Literary Criticism 140
2.5 Conclusions 161
Notes 162

Chapter 3. Laws' Genres: Hymns, Encomia, and the Remaking of Lament
Abstract 177
3.1 Th Introduction: 178
3.2 The Laws' Genres: Hymns, Encomia, and the Politics of Euphêmia 185
3.3 The Laws in Praise and Blame 198
3.4 Funerary Regained 207
3.5 Conclusions 221
Notes 226

Chapter 4. Unideal Genres and the Ideal City: Comedy, Tragedy, and the Limits of the City Dancing
Abstract 232
4.1 Introduction 233
4.2 Comedy, Threnody, and the Performance of Alterity 236
4.3 From Antithesis to Identity: Comedic and Iambic Invective 253
4.4 Plato's Tragic Muse 257
4.5 Beyond the Politics of Performance: ta bakkheia and the Genres of Ecstasy 271
4.6 Conclusions 277
Notes 279

Chapter 5. Women's Statuses in Plato's Laws: Nature, Gender, Law, and the Performance of Citizenship

Abstract 288
5.1 Introduction 289
5.2 'Natural' Heterosexuality 295
5.3 Transgendered Virtues and the Social Contract 310
5.4 Natural Correction: Feasting, Warfare, Schooling, and the 'Trope of Life' (tropos tou biou) 315
5.5 Unnatural Limitations: The Political Lives of Women 333
5.6 Conclusions 346
Notes 348

Chapter 6. Engendering Harmonies: Women's Songs in Plato's Laws
Abstract 357
6.1 Introduction 358
6.2 Veils of Silence: Women, Theater, and Performance in Athens and Magnesia 361
6.3 Performance, Performativity, and the Making of Citizen Women 372
6.4 'Cultic Citizenship' Revisited: Lament and the Female Voice 390
6.5 Conclusions 401
Notes 406

Epilogue. Plato's Last Long: A Postlude on Law and the Preludes 406

Bibliography 427

The City and the Stage

Performance, Genre, and Gender in Plato's Laws

Marcus Folch

Author Information

Marcus Folch is Associate Professor of Classics at Columbia University. His published work includes studies of ancient Greek literature, philosophy, and literary criticism, as well as classical reception in the 20th century.

The City and the Stage

Performance, Genre, and Gender in Plato's Laws

Marcus Folch

Reviews and Awards

"The City and the Stage has made an important contribution towards arriving at a nuanced understanding of Plato's attitude to the arts of the Muses. The approach is original in that Folch reads Laws as an early contribution to the history of performance theory, literary criticism and cultural history; he thus reveals that there is a strong anthropological, cultural historical dimension in Laws' philosophy that has not been recognized thus far." -- Myrthe Bartels, GNOMON

"The City and the Stage is an engaging and informative study of a very interesting aspect of Plato's Laws, and Folch does well in selling the case for why more scholars should direct their attention to this neglected and much-maligned work." -- Classical Journal-Online

"Folch provides a worthwhile contribution to our understanding of an under-read Platonic dialogue." -- Gregory Kirk (Northern Arizona University), Polis, The Journal for Ancient Greek Political Thought 35

"The City and the Stage welcomes its readers warmly: the introduction states the author's aims clearly, situates the book in the context of current scholarship, clarifies its methodology and provides a careful overview of the Laws targeted at the non-specialist reader. ... With its sustained focus on performance and illuminating discussion of many elusive problems, to which this brief review cannot do justice, The City and the Stage is a very welcome addition to the recent flowering of studies on the Laws." -- Andrea Capra, Greek and Roman Musical Studies

"Folch's is impressive because it demonstrates convincingly the central role Plato would give to musical performance. In particular he shows how it provides the psychological underpinnings for the institutions and practices described in the dialogue. In this way it does much to elucidate what Plato has in mind when he has the Athenian insist that every institution in the city must serve to promote complete virtue among the citizens." --Richard Stalley, The International Journal of the Platonic Tradition

"Folch's book is outstanding, full of original and exciting ideas. This is a major contribution to the field of classical studies." --Andrea Nightingale, Stanford University

"This sophisticated analysis elucidates how Plato's ideal community would transform musical performance into training for citizenship. Working with themes of genre and gender, Folch offers a lucid and stylish examination that relates spectatorship to civic identity, and makes persuasive correlations between aesthetic, ethical and political concerns in Laws." --Judith Fletcher, Wilfrid Laurier University

"The book is well produced, and ... I recommend it to both scholars and general readers. With its sustained focus on performance and illuminating discussion of many elusive problems, to which this brief review cannot do justice, The City and the Stage is a very welcome addition to the recent flowering of studies on the Laws." --Andrea Capra, Greek and Roman Musical Studies