Greek Tragedy (eBook)

Nancy Sorkin Rabinowitz is the Margaret Bundy Scott Professor of Comparative Literature at Hamilton College, where she teaches tragedy, modern drama, and nineteenth- and twentieth-century fiction. She is the author of Anxiety Veiled: Euripides and the Traffic in Women (1993), as well as the co-editor of Feminist Theory and the Classics (1993), Among Women: From the Homosocial to the Homoerotic in the Ancient World (2002), and Women on the Edge: Four Plays by Euripides (1998), for which she translated Euripides' Alcestis.

List of Figures.

Preface.

Introduction.

Part I Tragedy in Its Athenian Context.

1 What Was Tragedy?.

Definitions of Tragedy.

What Did It Do?.

Where Did It Come From?.

How Were the Plays Performed?.

2 Tragedy and the Polis.

Democracy.

Empire and Hegemony.

Performance Setting.

Rhetoric.

Referentiality.

Ideology.

Nothing to Do with the City?.

3 Tragedy and Greek Religion.

Dionysos.

Sacred Time and Space.

Ritual Practices.

Ritual Practice in Tragedy.

Greek Gods and Mortals.

Tragedy and Myth.

Euripides' Bacchai.

Part II Thematic Approaches.

4 War and Empire.

Aeschylus' Persians.

Aeschylus' Oresteia.

Euripides' Iphigeneia at Aulis.

5 Family Romance and Revenge in the House of Atreus.

Euripides' Elektra.

Sophocles' Elektra.

6 Victims and Victimizers.

Euripides' Trojan Women.

Euripides' Hekabe.

Euripides' Medea.

7 The King and I.

Sophocles' Antigone.

Sophocles' Oedipus Tyrannos.

8 Epilogue: Modern Performances (with Sue Blundell).

References.

Index

"Engaging introduction to Greek tragedy, ... Greek
Tragedy is written in an informal, appealing style ...
.Rabinowitz is able to lead the reader quickly to the central
issues of a play, often with reference to key terms or ideas
already brought up in the 'context' chapters, and then
to explore those ideas as pairs of irreconcilables in a way
consistent with her overall emphasis on the ambivalences,
ambiguities, and unresolved problems tragedy poses to ancient and
modern audiences alike." (Bryn Mawr Classical Review,
December 2008)

"As a supplement ... [it's] a vein of gold. [The
author's] nuanced familiarity with every aspect of the topic
of Greek drama is breath-taking." (About.com)

"A new approach to a popular subject offering readings of
some of the best-known Attic tragedies in both their ancient and
modern contexts. The author's application of contemporary debates
and issues to the ancient material is refreshing and stimulating.
This book has much to offer."

-Fiona McHardy, Roehampton University