Customer Reviews

The Cambridge Companion to Greek Tragedy (Cambridge Companions to Literature)

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This is a rigorous companion to Greek tragedy studies. These essays are not meant to merely summarize but to actually contribute to the scholarly literature on Greek tragedy. The first three essays are about the social context of Greek tragedy and its function in Greek civic life, the festival of Dionysus, and its direct relationship to the audience. The essay "The pictorial record" is an interesting approach to discussing our historical knowledge of Greek tragedy with particular attention to Greek pottery (there are many pictures in this essay). Edith Hall's "The Sociology of Athenian tragedy" has a good discussion of tragedy's depiction of Athens, gender, class, and democracy (the latter is rather short).
All the essays are dripping with substance including helpful citations to other sources making this collection of essays important for anyone beginning to do research on Greek tragedy. Particularly useful in this respect is Goldhill's essay "Modern critical approaches to Greek tragedy."
Another noteworthy feature is the glossary of approximately 75 Greek words and their meaning in English.
This book will interest all who study Greece during the Periclean Age (between the Persian Wars and through the Peloponnesian Wars), poetry, Homer, tragedy, and the history of the theatre.
Another good, similar, and complimentary source to this book is Nothing to Do with Dionysos? Athenian Drama in Its Social Context edited by John J. Winkler and Froma I Zeitlin (although this latter book has only in common with the former the social and political context of Greek tragedy).

As you can probably tell from the other reviews, this book's intended audience is a serious academic one (or, at least, one pretty familiar with tragedy). As a Classicist, this collection has been an indispensible introduction to the different paths that fellow scholars are taking in their research.

For the more casual reader, Richard Lattimore's "The Poetry of Greek Tragedy" is a great start (it divides its sections among specific authors and works, making it a good beginner's reference tool as well.):

http://www.amazon.com/Poetry-Greek-Tragedy-Richmond-Lattimore/dp/080187260X/ref=sr_1_6?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1205774573&sr=8-6

For those more inclined to the cultural, performative and general aspects of tragedy, look no further than Oliver Taplin's "Greek Tragedy in Action". It is indispensible (HUGE influence in the field of classics!) and a personal favorite:

http://www.amazon.com/Greek-Tragedy-Action-Oliver-Taplin/dp/041530251X/ref=pd_bbs_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1205774924&sr=1-1

Happy reading!

Despite what some have said in reviews here, this is a very good book if one would like to learn about the form, structure, history, social impact, etc. of Greek tragedy. If you want analyses of particular plays this is not the book to get. All you have to do to understand that is to read the publisher's review to learn what is inside this book. This is a valuable collection of very informed esays. Ignore the those who have given this a bad review. They obviously did not inform themselves before they bought the book.

If you are a classics scholar or student, you might find this book to your liking--although I'd recommend you browse through it in a bookstore before buying it online, sight unseen. Just keep in mind, it is NOT A COMPANION to Greek Tragedy as it claims, which to my mind implies that it is a reference book about the tragedies and their authors. Instead, this book is simply a short collection of seemingly random and unrelated essays about select tragedies. This book looks like someone's attempts to get tenure in their department more than anything else. If you're writing a dissertation on Euripides or Aeschylus perhaps you'll find a tidbit of scholarship in this book that will make it worth the price, but if you're just a fan of Greek Tragedy there are better books to buy.

Excelent companion to the ever complex Greek dramas. Explains things carefuly so that the reader may understand the story on more levels according to the time, space and culture in which it was written.