Staged narrative : poetics and the messenger in Greek tragedy /

Barrett (Colby College) argues that the figure of the messenger in Greek tragedy has been largely taken for granted and relegated to a relatively unimportant position in drama (in a hundred years of scholarship, the author found only two monographs and a handful of dissertations devoted to this figure). Operating at the juncture of narrative theory, genre study, and rhetorical analysis, Barrett rejects the conventional wisdom and hopes to establish the messenger figure as a much more significant factor in Greek tragedy. He turns his focus to the source and character of the knowledge that the messenger transmits, seeing these factors as a reflection of the epic practice of attributing to the Homeric narrator knowledge derived from the divine muse. Barrett's scope is wide but his thesis--that the messenger is a figure with rhetorical objectives--will not convert every reader who believes in the traditional view of the messenger as a neutral and objective reporter. The book suffers from the lack of a succinct conclusion to bring various lines of evidence into focus. Without benefit of this addition, the book loses audience. For extensive collections serving upper-division undergraduates and above. L. Golden Florida State University