Euripidean Polemic
The Trojan Women and the Function of Tragedy

The book offers an interpretation of Euripides' The Trojan Women which issues from the argument that the function of Greek tragedy was to educate.

Neil T. Croally (Author)

9780521041126, Cambridge University Press

Paperback / softback, published 18 October 2007

328 pages
21.6 x 14 x 1.9 cm, 0.42 kg

"It shows on every page the influence of the work of scholars like Loraux, Vernant and Zeitlin, but unlike many studies that share this pedigree, it is lucidly written and free of irritating jargon. Indeed, it can be safely recommended to those classicists who are somehow uneasily aware that naive positivism has died, but who are too embarassed to ask what has taken its place." Bryn Mawr Classical Review

The book offers an interpretation of Euripides' The Trojan Women which issues from the argument that the function of Greek tragedy was to educate. The author demonstrates that the play performs its function by examining Athenian ideology. By making the didactic function of tragedy the basis of interpretation, he is able to offer a coherent view of a number of long-standing problems in Euripidean criticism, for instance, the relation of Euripides to the Sophists.

Acknowledgements
Abbreviations
Introduction
1. Teaching, ideology and war
2. Polarities
3. The ag?n
4. Space and time
5. As if war had given a lecture
Appendix: ideology and war
Bibliography
General index
Index of passages cited.

Subject Areas: Cultural studies [JFC], Literary studies: classical, early & medieval [DSBB]