Dana Sutton
University of California, Irvine, Classics, Emeritus
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After graduating from the Bronxville Senior School, Dana F. Sutton received the B. A. (Comparative Literature) from T... moreAfter graduating from the Bronxville Senior School, Dana F. Sutton received the B. A. (Comparative Literature) from The New School for Social Research and Ph. D. (Classics) from the University of Wisconsin, and then enjoyed two years of postdoctoral research at the University of Cambridge (supported by a grant from the American Philosophical Society) and one year as a Visiting Scholar at the University of Auckland. In 1975 he received a Guggenheim Fellowship and was also appointed Assistant Professor of Classics at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, and four years later migrated to the University of California at Irvine, where he served as a member of the Department of Classics for twenty-five years, occupying the position of departmental Chair for nine of them.
In his early years he focused his attention on ancient drama, publishing book-length studies on the Greek satyr play, Greek and Roman comedy, Sophocles, Euripides and Seneca. Work on Seneca led him to take an interest in English academic plays of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, an enthusiasm which eventually broadened to a general devotion to the Neo-Latin literature of the British Isles. He believes editing a work of literature is the most efficient and comprehensive way of interrogating it. Also doing this kind of work allows him to capitalize on the investigative technology developed by the Irvine-based Thesaurus Linguae Graecae Project. Therefore most of his research activity has consisted of producing annotated editions of previously unavailable texts accompanied by English translations. Four themes keep resurfacing in his publications: 1.) The rise of English Humanism under the Tudors thanks in large part to the personal agency of Henry VII. 2.) the frequent use of Neo-Latin literature as a vehicle for political propaganda under the Tudors and James I, 3.) the interaction between university plays and the drama of the London popular stage, especially as written by Shakespeare and to a lesser extent by Ben Jonson, and 4.) a conviction that the work of Anglo-Catholic writers (particularly playwrights) on the Continent is a necessary part of the overall picture. 5. An interest in the way a revolution in the Cambridge curriculum engineered in the mid-sixteenth century by John Cheke, Walter Haddon, Thomas Wilson and Thomas Smith, a mix of Humanism and Anglican Protestantism, produced a cohort of students who went on to occupy a remarkable number of senior governmental positions during the reign of Elizabeth.
In the late 1990's, frustrated by the difficulty of finding publishers in the English-speaking world willing to accept Neo-Latin scholarship, he founded The Philological Museum, a library of Neo-Latin texts supplied by himself and others. This allowed participants in the project to capitalize on such exciting possibilities of electronic publication as the production of electronically searchable texts and use of hypertext. This also achieved the desired result of entirely severing the relationship between academic publishing and economic considerations. The results may occasionally look a trifle home-made, but the current profit-oriented condition of the academic publishing industry really leaves no viable alternative.
Realizing that the University of California was unwilling to guarantee a safe environment for the Museum because of an institutional disinterest in ensuring long-term archiving of electronic scholarship in the Humanities, he found it a secure permanent home at The Shakespeare Institute, a research project of the University of Birmingham, and since 2004 the Museum has been housed by the Institute. As part of that transfer, the Museum acquired a Fellow of the Institute, the distinguished scholar Dr. Martin Wiggins, as a co-editor, and since 2004 the Museum has served well over a hundred thousand visitors.
Prof. Sutton may be contacted at danasutton@mac.com. edit
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... The domus of Pelops is constantly mentioned in the text and obviously has symbolic value: the Furia is trying to overturn the House of Pelops in both the literal and the figurative sense, and set-ting the play in front of the domus... more
... The domus of Pelops is constantly mentioned in the text and obviously has symbolic value: the Furia is trying to overturn the House of Pelops in both the literal and the figurative sense, and set-ting the play in front of the domus regia would give visual reinforcement to this verbal ...
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Page 1. THE THEATRICAL FAMILIES OF ATHENS Any student of Greek or Roman literature is aware of situations in which ancient writers were members of the same family. But in no other department of ancient letters was this phenomenon so... more
Page 1. THE THEATRICAL FAMILIES OF ATHENS Any student of Greek or Roman literature is aware of situations in which ancient writers were members of the same family. But in no other department of ancient letters was this phenomenon so pervasive as in Attic drama. ...
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During the entire period of the creative activity of Aeschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides, tragic playwrights were required to enter the dramatic competition at the Dionysia with tetralogies consisting of three tragedies followed by a... more
During the entire period of the creative activity of Aeschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides, tragic playwrights were required to enter the dramatic competition at the Dionysia with tetralogies consisting of three tragedies followed by a satyr play. This last was a comparatively short mythological travesty, a, 2 that received its name because its chorus is invariably composed of satyrs:3 comical half-men, half-beasts who regularly embody a wide range of shortcomings but nevertheless are possessed of a mysterious fund of knowledge and wisdom.
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During the entire period of the creative activity of Aeschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides, tragic playwrights were required to enter the dramatic competition at the Dionysia with tetralogies consisting of three tragedies followed by a... more
During the entire period of the creative activity of Aeschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides, tragic playwrights were required to enter the dramatic competition at the Dionysia with tetralogies consisting of three tragedies followed by a satyr play. This last was a comparatively short mythological travesty, a, 2 that received its name because its chorus is invariably composed of satyrs:3 comical half-men, half-beasts who regularly embody a wide range of shortcomings but nevertheless are possessed of a mysterious fund of knowledge and wisdom.
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Art and Literature
... in the Poetics. At Poetics 1449 a 9-25, Aristotle states that tragedy evolved to its present physis by passing through two evolutionary stages' involving, first, the exarchontes of dithyramb and, second, a satyrikon. If this... more
... in the Poetics. At Poetics 1449 a 9-25, Aristotle states that tragedy evolved to its present physis by passing through two evolutionary stages' involving, first, the exarchontes of dithyramb and, second, a satyrikon. If this satyrikon ...
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One of the best-known fragments of a lost Greek drama is... more
One of the best-known fragments of a lost Greek drama is Critias' fr. 43F19 Snell, an extended rhesis from the play Sisyphus in which the protagonist narrates how once upon a time human life was squalid, brutal, and anarchistic; as a remedy men devised Law and Justice; this expedient served to check open wrongdoing but did not hinder secret crimes; then some very clever man hit upon the idea of inventing gods and the notion of divine retribution; thus secret criminality was stopped by fear of the gods.The prevalent understanding of…
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DANA FERRIN SUTTON IN addition to Euripides' Cyclops, the basic text for the study of the Greek satyr play is Victor Steffen's Satyrographorum Graecorum Fragmenta.1 Any student of the satyr play is undoubtedly... more
DANA FERRIN SUTTON IN addition to Euripides' Cyclops, the basic text for the study of the Greek satyr play is Victor Steffen's Satyrographorum Graecorum Fragmenta.1 Any student of the satyr play is undoubtedly aware of the many virtues of this highly useful work, but must be ...
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... London jig in content, if not in level of dramaturgic attainment3. 1 For satyr play cf. Peter Guggisberg, Das Satyr spiel, Z?rich 1947; Nikos Chormouziades, SATYRIKA, Athens 1974; DF Sutton, The Greek Satyr Play, forthcoming in Beitr.... more
... London jig in content, if not in level of dramaturgic attainment3. 1 For satyr play cf. Peter Guggisberg, Das Satyr spiel, Z?rich 1947; Nikos Chormouziades, SATYRIKA, Athens 1974; DF Sutton, The Greek Satyr Play, forthcoming in Beitr. zur Mass. Philol.; for A telan farce cf. ...
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Besonders der Brand von Lugdunum, aber auch die Gestaltung von Senecas Verhaltnis zu seiner zweiten Gemahlin Pompeia Paulina in der Todesszene oder die Charakterisierung seiner Einstellung zu seinem kaiserlichen Zoeline geben uns Grund zu... more
Besonders der Brand von Lugdunum, aber auch die Gestaltung von Senecas Verhaltnis zu seiner zweiten Gemahlin Pompeia Paulina in der Todesszene oder die Charakterisierung seiner Einstellung zu seinem kaiserlichen Zoeline geben uns Grund zu der Annahme, das fur Tacitus der Briefwechsel Senecas keine Rolle als Primarquelle seiner Darstellung der Jahre 63 und 64 spielte. Der Geschichtsschreiber ist also ungeeignet, in der Kontroverse, ob die Korrespondenz wirklich gefuhrt worden oder freischopferischer Entwurf des literarischen Genies ist, als Zeuge oder gar als Kronzeuge angerufen zu werden77).
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... Two lost plays of Euripides. Post a Comment. CONTRIBUTORS: Author: Sutton, Dana Ferrin. PUBLISHER: P. Lang (New York). SERIES TITLE: YEAR: 1987. PUB TYPE: Book (ISBN 0820403660 ). VOLUME/EDITION: PAGES (INTRO/BODY): 159 p. ...
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History and Philosophy
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Comedy criticism has lacked a theoretical underpinning both to facilitate the work of interpretation and to generate a satisfactory mode of discourse. In The Catharsis of Comedy, Dana F. Sutton takes the initial steps toward the creation... more
Comedy criticism has lacked a theoretical underpinning both to facilitate the work of interpretation and to generate a satisfactory mode of discourse. In The Catharsis of Comedy, Dana F. Sutton takes the initial steps toward the creation of a comprehensive theory that embraces a number of theoretical constructs and analytical techniques. Sutton begins with an examination of the ideas of such thinkers as Aristotle, Herbert Spencer, Sigmund Freud, and Krishna Menon. Once the workings of comic catharsis are described, Sutton relates his new theory to other theories of comedy and humor, including the ideas of festival comedy set forth by Barber and Bakhtin, Lionel Abel's metatheater, and Konrad Lorenz's suggestion that humor originated in primate expressions of hostility. The result is a theory of enormous potential for the analysis of specific comedies, coupled with the creation of a vocabulary with which analytical discoveries can be discussed.
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... The dramaturgy of the Octavia. Post a Comment. CONTRIBUTORS: Author: Sutton, Dana F. PUBLISHER: A. Hain (Königstein/Ts. Germany). SERIES TITLE: YEAR: 1983. PUB TYPE: Book (ISBN 3445022933 [pbk]). VOLUME/EDITION: PAGES (INTRO/BODY): 78... more
... The dramaturgy of the Octavia. Post a Comment. CONTRIBUTORS: Author: Sutton, Dana F. PUBLISHER: A. Hain (Königstein/Ts. Germany). SERIES TITLE: YEAR: 1983. PUB TYPE: Book (ISBN 3445022933 [pbk]). VOLUME/EDITION: PAGES (INTRO/BODY): 78 p. ...
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Aeschylus' Oresteia trilogy is at once an assemblage of three tragedies and a great overarching whole bound together not only by the story of the sacrifice of Iphigeneia and ite baleful consequences, but also by a tightly interwoven... more
Aeschylus' Oresteia trilogy is at once an assemblage of three tragedies and a great overarching whole bound together not only by the story of the sacrifice of Iphigeneia and ite baleful consequences, but also by a tightly interwoven nexus of recurring and often "proleptic" themes and images that run through the trilogy like so many leitmotifs. The trilogy confronts us as a kind of thematic tapestry, as awesomely huge, complex, and difficult to understand as the will of Zeus itself. The Oresteia, however, was not a trilogy but rather a tetralogy that included the lost satyric Proteus. Sooner or later we are bound to wonder — even at the risk of indulging in a bit of speculation — how the Proteus may have been woven into the fabric of the whole. For given the integration of the preceding trilogy — and also given Aeschylus' propensity for relating satyr plays to trilogies on other occasions — it is difficult to imagine that the Proteus was nothing more than a loosely appended Nachspiel. According to Marius Victorinus II. 4 p. 110 Gaisford, satyr play was introduced ut spectatoris animus inter tristes res satyrorum iocis et lusíbus relaxetur, an appraisal of the purpose of satyric drama repeated by modern critics and scholars. It looks
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An introduction to the poetry of a mid-16th. c. Cambridge professor who was very instrumental into introducing a ferment of Humanism at his university and transforming it into a breeding-ground for future statesmen in Elizabeth's... more
An introduction to the poetry of a mid-16th. c. Cambridge professor who was very instrumental into introducing a ferment of Humanism at his university and transforming it into a breeding-ground for future statesmen in Elizabeth's government.
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Introduction to a contemporary source document about the so-called Kett Rebellion of 1549 previously unknown to historians.
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A set of epigrams written by one of the best English Neo-latin poets of the mid-16th. century.
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Text of an oration which vividly reminds one that during the reigns of Edward VI and Elizabeth I England's government was principally manned by Cambridge graduates, products of the new kind of Humanistic education introduced by John Cheke... more
Text of an oration which vividly reminds one that during the reigns of Edward VI and Elizabeth I England's government was principally manned by Cambridge graduates, products of the new kind of Humanistic education introduced by John Cheke and Thomas Smith, almost all of whom were devout Protestants
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A note showing that in working to provide plays to supply entertainment for the 1615 royal visitation to Cambridge Ruggle and Tomkis wrote by prearrangement. Both feature as their central character a double-talking conman posing as an... more
A note showing that in working to provide plays to supply entertainment for the 1615 royal visitation to Cambridge Ruggle and Tomkis wrote by prearrangement. Both feature as their central character a double-talking conman posing as an "expert," both handle the theme of the abuse of language, contain strikingly similar characters and present a number of other resemblances. In essence, both take their inspiration from Ben Jonson's The Alchemist.
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Introduction to an editon of Gabriel Harvey's lengthy poem mourning the death of Sir Thomas Smith, an important Tudor scholar-diplomat-statesman often neglected by historians.
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Introduction to an academic play written as an adverse reaction to the rise of Gallicism in France.
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Introduction to an edition of the Oxford memorial anthology on the death of Sir Philip Sidney.
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Introduction to an Oxford Latin prize poem by a poet whose English work was highly regarded by his contemporaries but sadly neglected today.
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When founded in 1584, the press operated by Joseph Barnes at Oxford (the first one to exist at the University) was primarily devoted to producing wartime political propaganda during the first years of its operation.
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The first critical edition of the 1593 sonnet cycle "The Teares of Fancie." There are powerful reasons for concluding that this work was NOT written by the contemporary poet Thomas Watson.
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Introduction to a 1597 Cambridge comedy of particular interest for its handling of the lead female role, which is strikingly like that found in a number of Shakespeare's comedies.
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Introduction to a Jesuit play written against what eventually became identified as the heresy of Gallicanism. It is tempting (albeit perhaps wrong) to read it as a personal attack on Louis XIV.
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The title says it all.
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History of a repository of Humanities texts that takes advantage of the possibilities of electronic publishing such as textual searching and hypertext.
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The history of an online text repository that takes advantage of the possibilities of modern technology
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An argument that all early modern drama (London popular, university and Anglo-Catholic) should be read as a continuum rather than being divvied up among different teams of specialists, supported by a list of specific interactions beween... more
An argument that all early modern drama (London popular, university and Anglo-Catholic) should be read as a continuum rather than being divvied up among different teams of specialists, supported by a list of specific interactions beween these three traditions
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The history of an online repository of Neo-Latin tex ts
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A history of an online Neo-Latin text repository
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The history of an online repository of edited Neo-Latin literary texts
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The history and rationale of an online repository of edited Neo-Latin literary texts.