Telling Tragedy: Narrative Technique in Aeschylus, Sophocles and Euripides

(Paperback, New edition)

Publishing Details

Classifications

Physical Properties

Description

Using recent narrative theory, this book explores the narrative strategies that sustain the complex relationship between the tragic poet and his sophisticated audience. It discusses how these sprawling stories were typically shaped by Aeschylus into dramatic form; and, once established, how these patterns were successively adapted, subverted, capped or ignored by Sophocles and Euripides in the annual attempt to recreate suspense and express fresh meanings relevant to the difficult last decades of the fifth century.

Reviews

'This is a thoroughly interesting book... it has a liveliness and light touch that make it suitable for a wide readership.' Greece and Rome 'Teachers will find her short introductory chapter on theoretical aspects of narrative and drama illuminating and extremely well researched.... I enjoyed her asides on Shakespeare and the Victorian novel as much as what she has to say about Plato and the place of narrative in Greek tragedy itself.' Ann King, LACT Newsletter

Author Bio

Barbara Goward teaches Classics at Birkbeck College, London.