{"product_id":"tragedy-authority-and-trickery-ryan-s-olson-9780674053373","title":"Tragedy, Authority, and Trickery: The Poetics of Embedded Letters in Josephus","description":"\u003cp\u003eTo prove his sons' treachery, Herod embellished a letter. To certify his history of Vespasian's Judaean campaign, Josephus marshaled epistolary testimony. To alleviate a domestic problem, the Israelite king David sent a missive with a man it marks for death. Arguing for the importance of the first-century historian Josephus to the study of classical and Hellenistic literature, \u003ci\u003eTragedy, Authority, and Trickery\u003c\/i\u003e investigates letters in Josephus's texts. \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eRyan S. Olson breaks new ground by analyzing classical, Hellenistic, and Jewish texts' use of letters, comparing those texts to Josephus's narratives, a virtual archive containing hundreds of letters. An external voice similar to speeches, embedded letters raise questions of authority, drive and color dramatic scenes, and function at textual and meta-textual levels to deceive their readers. Josephus, contextualized in a complex intellectual and cultural milieu, sustains and develops epistolarity in important ways that will be of interest to classicists, historians, theologians, and comparatists.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eAuthor:\u003c\/b\u003e Ryan S. Olson\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eISBN-10:\u003c\/b\u003e 0674053370\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eISBN-13:\u003c\/b\u003e 9780674053373\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003ePublisher:\u003c\/b\u003e Harvard University Press\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eLanguage:\u003c\/b\u003e English\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003ePublished:\u003c\/b\u003e 09\/30\/2010\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003ePages:\u003c\/b\u003e 225\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eFormat:\u003c\/b\u003e Paperback\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eWeight:\u003c\/b\u003e 0.98lbs\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eSize:\u003c\/b\u003e 8.94h x 6.35w x 0.68d","brand":"Ryan S. Olson","offers":[{"title":"Paperback","offer_id":43925550203135,"sku":"9780674053373","price":24.95,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0662\/2982\/9887\/products\/img_9de39945-8630-4cf2-9e03-273310ccb768.jpg?v=1681077936","url":"https:\/\/www.whiterainbookhouse.com\/products\/tragedy-authority-and-trickery-ryan-s-olson-9780674053373","provider":"WR Book House","version":"1.0","type":"link"}