Besides the various companions both to Greek Tragedy and to individual dramatists published by Wiley-Blackwell and Brill, she may consult three further subject-specific introductions published in the last decade: Nancy Sorkin Rabinowitz’s Greek Tragedy (Blackwell, 2008), Ruth Scodel’s An Introduction to Greek Tragedy (Cambridge, 2010) and Rush Rehm’s Understanding Greek Tragic Theatre (2 nd edition, Routledge, 2017).1 All three books offer a systematic overview of tragedy in two general parts,2 the first exploring the social, historical, and religious context of fifth-century Athens and the second providing readings of individual plays. 6. 'name': 'Greek Tragedy' Swift offers general yet often nuanced discussion of the salient elements of Greek tragedy, expertly weaving in multiple examples from a wide range of plays. A four page ‘Chronology’ of predominantly dramatic events follows this final chapter, as does a brief glossary and ‘Suggestions for Further Reading.’. Laura Swift’s Greek Tragedy: Themes and Contexts offers a clear and brief answer to undergraduate and advanced school pupils who are seeking a more thorough grounding in the topic. All passages of tragedy discussed are translated by the author and supplementary information includes a chronology of all the surviving tragedies, a glossary, and guidance on further reading. The latest volume in the Classical World series, this book offers a much-needed up-to-date introduction to Greek tragedy, and covers the most important thematic topics studied at school or university level. Laura Swift brilliantly and lucidly brings out how tragedy combines such accessibility with 'tackling the hard qualities in human life' in ways that are still important and thought provoking today.” –  Song-The Chorus. While the discussion is unsurprisingly rich and nuanced, given Swift’s expertise on the topic, I am intrigued as to why she decided to leave a consideration of the chorus to the very end of the book, a decision that effectively marginalises the most distinctive feature of ancient Greek tragedy.
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ga('ec:addProduct', The second chapter gives an account of tragedy’s main three playwrights, focusing on the most prominent elements of each poet’s style and the expectations of the fifth-century viewing audience when confronted with a new play.

ga('ec:setAction', 'add'); It offers an efficient and palatable way to prepare students to engage in informed discussions about a single tragedy or a selection of plays without predisposing them to any particular interpretation.” –  Spectacle-Special effects (least important) 1. The book's approach focuses on contexts: it is throughout concerned to situate the topics the book analyses within the world of ancient Greece — its landscape, its social and moral priorities, its mental structures, its horizons of expectation. 'id': '9781350015135', Swift offers general yet often nuanced discussion of the salient elements of Greek tragedy, expertly weaving in multiple examples from a wide range of plays. the elements that are specifically associated with the ancient formulation of the genre, is the concern of chapters 3–5, ‘Myth’, ‘Heroes’, and ‘The Gods’. 2. Robert Hancock-Jones, James Renshaw, “Laura Swift's Greek Tragedy: Themes and Contexts offers a clear and brief answer to undergraduate and advanced school pupils who are seeking a more thorough grounding in the topic. ga('ec:setAction', 'add'); Typically the main protagonist of a tragedy commits some terrible crime without realizing how foolish and arrogant he has been. 'name': 'OCR Classical Civilisation AS and A Level Components 21 and 22' This well-written and very readable book will inspire readers to discover or return to the plays themselves and to undertake some further study from the succinct, but pertinent, bibliography.” –  The emphasis in this whirlwind account is the diverse nature of the genre as an art form. }); Created by Nancy The great moment of the Greek tragedy, its Golden Age, took place in the 5th century BC with the decline of lyric poetry. How are we to understand and study it today? Swift’s book, the newest addition to these tragic introductions, is even shorter. ga('ec:setAction', 'add'); There are several differences, of course: Rabinowitz, for example, selects specific plays that respond to particular themes (e.g. The most famous playwrights of the genre were Aeschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides and many of their works were still performed centuries after their initial premiere. Chapter 6 begins with an overview of the intellectual climate in Athens, and then outlines three areas that Swift sees as central to fifth-century thought: ‘ nomos and physis ’, ‘Greeks and foreigners’, and ‘rhetoric and speech’. 'name': 'Greek Tragedy' The chapter on myth explains the appeal of mythical plots—which Swift neatly correlates with fanfiction today—by demonstrating ways in which tragedians created suspense despite the audience’s familiarity with myths. I believe that this direct approach, coupled with the book’s brevity, will appeal greatly to today’s students as their first port of call on the topic. ga('ec:setAction', 'add'); As elsewhere in the book, the chapter kicks off with contextual information, this time on the prevalence of choruses in ancient Greek life, and proceeds to a discussion of their tragic manifestation. $('#addtocartbutton-330243').click(function() { The first chapter discusses the expectations of ancient Athenian audiences and who formed that audience. Laura Swift.

It is particularly accessible to the general reader ... and requires no knowledge of the Greek language.
'id': '9781350015128',

Swift offers general yet often nuanced discussion of the salient elements of Greek tragedy, expertly weaving in multiple examples from a wide range of plays. TRAGEDY MUST HAVE SIX PARTS 1. Then, as he slowly realizes his error, the world crumbles around him. { Examples from extant plays are instead invoked in order to support the general examination of a given theme.

Characters-The Tragic Hero 3. Save my name, email, and website in this browser for the next time I comment. Oliver Taplin, Professor Emeritus of Classics, Oxford University, UK, “What is 'tragic', and what indeed is Greek, about Greek tragedy? 'id': '9781350015111',

Thought-Theme 4. The latest volume in the Classical World series, this book offers a much-needed up-to-date introduction to Greek tragedy, and covers the most important thematic topics studied at … One might wonder whether it is possible for pupils to gain a proper appreciation of Sophocles’ and Euripides’ later plays without this knowledge. Remarkably, these books pack a great deal of information into fewer and fewer pages: excluding bibliography and indices, these range from 198 and 195 pages of text (Rabinowitz, Scodel) to 163 pages (Rehm). 'name': 'OCR Classical Civilisation AS and A Level Components 21 and 22'

{ ‘Heroes’ is unsurprisingly dominated by discussion of Aristotle’s Poetics, with sections devoted to inspecting tragedy’s diverse cast of heroes in order to underline the fact that Aristotle’s notions are not always applicable. 'name': 'Greek Tragedy' In this chapter she demonstrates the manner in which tragedians explore ideas related to each of these areas in individual plays. Remarkably, Swift does away with the historical overview that typically accompanies such an account, stating simply that that tragedy flourished alongside democracy, ‘during the time that Athens grew to be the mistress of a large empire and a cultural magnet for the Greek world’ (2). 0 Reviews. }); $('#addtocartbutton-262044').click(function() {

We haven't found any reviews in the usual places. By contrast, today’s undergraduate has a wealth of options.

Christopher Pelling, Emeritus Regius Professor of Greek, Oxford University, UK, “Laura Swift's Greek Tragedy: Themes and Contexts offers a clear and brief answer to undergraduate and advanced school pupils who are seeking a more thorough grounding in the topic. 'name': 'OCR Classical Civilisation AS and A Level Components 21 and 22' Tragedy - Tragedy dealt with the big themes of love, loss, pride, the abuse of power and the fraught relationships between men and gods. 2. Swift’s aim, then, is to explain ‘what is distinctive about Greek tragedy, what defines it as a genre and what its particular preoccupations are’ (x).