The Cambridge Companion to Greek Tragedy

This book deals with the historical context of ancient Greek tragic performances, with the plays themselves, and with later adaptation and re-performance, down to modern times.

P. E. Easterling (Edited by)

9780521423519, Cambridge University Press

Paperback, published 2 October 1997

410 pages, 33 b/w illus. 1 map
22.6 x 15 x 2.8 cm, 0.59 kg

'… 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

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.

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.

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