The Soul of Tragedy: Essays on Athenian Drama - Softcover

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0226653064 ISBN 13: 9780226653068

Publisher: University of Chicago Press, 2006

Synopsis

The Soul of Tragedy brings together top scholars to offer a wide range of perspectives on Greek tragedy. The collection pays homage to this ancient, enduring theatrical and literary genre by offering a deep exploration into the oldest form of dramatic expression. It is a reminder that, for all their years, these dramas still have much to teach us.

Exemplary of the nature and scope of this book, the essays range from Simon Goldhill's comparative study of music, gender, and culture to Martha Nussbaum's inspection of "the comic soul." Through the critical lenses of psychoanalysis, gender, social history, and philology, this compilation looks at Greek tragedy's peculiar power to illuminate the workings of the human soul. Structures of tragic meaning, the relationship between character desire and spectator experience, and investigations of tragedy's extraordinary preoccupation with gender reveal the form's emotional core and explain its rapid ascent through the hierarchy of cultural practices in classical Greece. The Soul of Tragedy is a celebration and a model of collaboration that will be essential reading for scholars in classics, literature, and drama.

About this title

About the Author:

Victoria Pedrick is associate professor in the Department of Classics at Georgetown University. Steven M. Oberhelman is professor in the Department of European and Classical Languages at Texas A&M University.

Review:

"The Soul of Tragedy: Essays on Athenian Drama is a collection of essays in honor of Charles Segal (1936-2002), whose contributions to the study of Greek tragedy over several decades give him a fair claim to the title "soul of tragedy." This collection is more than a standard Festschrift, however, as it comprises the efforts of some of the field's top scholars, working with several different plays, in several different methodological traditions (primarily, but not entirely, structuralism, psychoanalysis, and feminist criticism). The book is not only an important resource for any professional student of Greek tragedy, but, in the richness of its methodological approaches, would also serve as a helpful introduction in a graduate seminar on literary criticism and tragedy." (Norman B. Sandridge Bryn Mawr Classical Review)

"A celebration and a model of collaboration that will be essential reading for scholars in classics, literature, and drama."—Fabula (Fabula)

"The essays give the reader many fascinating perspectives on some of the main approaches to the study of Athenian drama today." (Robin Mitchell-Boyask Clio)

About this edition

• Publisher: University of Chicago Press
• Publication date: 2006
• ISBN 10: 0226653064
• ISBN 13: 9780226653068
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 312
• Editor: Pedrick Victoria, Oberhelman Steven M.