As a creative medium, ancient Greek tragedy has had an extraordinarily wide influence: many of the surviving plays are still part of the theatrical repertoire, and texts like Agamemnon, Antigone, and Medea have had a profound effect on Western culture. This Companion is not a conventional introductory textbook but an attempt, by seven distinguished scholars, to present the familiar corpus in the context of modern reading, criticism, and performance of Greek tragedy. There are three main emphases: on tragedy as an institution in the civic life of ancient Athens, on a range of different critical interpretations arising from fresh readings of the texts, and on changing patterns of reception, adaptation, and performance from antiquity to the present. Each chapter can be read independently, but each is linked with the others, and most examples are drawn from the same selection of plays.
- All essays newly commissioned for this Companion
- The contributors include five of the most widely known and respected scholars in the field
- New approach to the subject - fresh readings of familiar texts
- Chapters on modern performance and adaptation, including opera and film
- Considers the role of tragedy in society
- Pat Easterling is the editor of the Greek and Latin Classics series
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Reviews & endorsements
'As a resource for teachers it is invaluable … Where else can such a wealth be found in one volume on tragedy?' JACT Review
'Classical scholars will find much to think about … and their students will find it invaluable. [The] book contains chapters that will launch a thousand essays. One may only hope that non-classicists will also be encouraged to explore the world of tragedy.' The Times Literary Supplement
'… an innovative and authoritative work which not only is easily the and paedagogically most useful handbook for the study of this most influential of Greek cultural productions; in addition, the contributors all forward the restless debate on tragedy and its heritage as they delineate it'. The Anglo-Hellenic Review
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Product details
- Date Published: December 1997
- format: Paperback
- isbn: 9780521423519
- length: 410 pages
- dimensions: 226 x 150 x 28 mm
- weight: 0.59kg
- contains: 33 b/w illus. 1 map
- availability: Available
Table of Contents
List of illustrations
List of contributors
Preface
Plan of the city of Athens
Part I. Tragedy as an Institution: The Historical Context:
1. 'Deep plays': theatre as process in Greek civic life Paul Cartledge
2. A show for Dionysus P. E. Easterling
3. The audience of Athenian tragedy Simon Goldhill
4. The pictorial record Oliver Taplin
Part II. The Plays:
5. The sociology of Athenian tragedy Edith Hall
6. The language of tragedy: rhetoric and communication Simon Goldhill
7. Form and performance P. E. Easterling
8. Myth into mythos: the shaping of tragic plots Peter Burian
Part III. Reception:
9. From repertoire to canon P. E. Easterling
10. Tragedy adapted for stages and screens: the Renaissance to the present Peter Burian
11. Tragedy in performance: nineteenth- and twentieth-century productions Fiona Macintosh
12. Modern critical approaches Simon Goldhill
Glossary
Chronology
Texts, commentaries and translations
Works cited
Index.
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Editor
P. E. Easterling, University of Cambridge
Contributors
Paul Cartledge, P. E. Easterling, Simon Goldhill, Oliver Taplin, Edith Hall, Peter Burian, Fiona MacIntosh