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

410 Pages·1997·16.94 MB·English

by  P. E. Easterling

As a creative medium, ancient Greek tragedy has had an extraordinarily wide
influence: many of the surviving plays are still part of the theatrical repertoire,
and texts like Agamemnon, Antigone, and Medea have had a profound effect
on Western culture. This Companion is not a conventional introductory
textbook but an attempt, by seven distinguished scholars, to present the
familiar corpus in the context of modern reading, criticism, and performance
of Greek tragedy. There are three main emphases: on tragedy as an institution
in the civic life of ancient Athens, on a range of different critical interpretations
arising from fresh readings of the texts, and on changing patterns of reception,
adaptation, and performance from antiquity to the present. Each chapter can
be read independently, but each is linked with the others in different ways,
and most examples are drawn from the same selection of plays.
THE CAMBRIDGE
COMPANION TO
GREEK TRAGEDY
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THE CAMBRIDGE
COMPANION TO
GREEK TRAGEDY
EDITED BY
P. E. EASTERLING
Regius Professor of Greek in the University of Cambridge
¡Ü CAMBRIDGE
'¡¡IP1 UNIVERSITY PRESS
PUBLISHED BY THE PRESS SYNDICATE OF THE UNIVERSITY OF CAMBRIDGE
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CAMBRIDGE UNIVERSITY PRESS
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© Cambridge University Press 1997
This book is in copyright. Subject to statutory exception
and to the provisions of relevant collective licensing agreements,
no reproduction of any part may take place without
the written permission of Cambridge University Press.
First published 1997
Reprinted 1999, 2001 (twice), 2003
Printed in the United Kingdom at the University Press, Cambridge
Typeset in Sabon
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
Library of Congress Cataloguing in Publication data
Easterling, P. E.
The Cambridge companion to Greek Tragedy / edited by P. E. Easterling.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references (p. 359).
ISBN O 521 4x245 5 (hardcover). — ISBN O 521 42351 1 (paperback)
1. Greek drama (Tragedy) - History and criticism.
2. Theatre — Greece — History.
1. Title
PA3131.E28 1997
882'.oio9-dc2i 96-37392 CIP
ISBN O 521 41245 5 hardback
ISBN O 521 42351 1 paperback
CE

CONTENTS
List of illustrations page ix
List of contributors xiii
Preface xv
Plan of the city of Athens xvii
Part I: Tragedy as an institution: the historical context
i 'Deep plays': theatre as process in Greek civic life 3
PAUL CARTLEDGE
2. A show for Dionysus 3 6
P. E. EASTERLING
3 The audience of Athenian tragedy 54
SIMON GOLDHILL
4 The pictorial record 69
OLIVER TAPLIN
Part H: The plays
5 The sociology of Athenian tragedy 93
EDITH HALL
6 The language of tragedy: rhetoric and communication 127
SIMON GOLDHILL
7 Form and performance 151
P.E. EASTERLING
vii
CONTENTS
8 Myth into muthos: the shaping of tragic plot 178
PETER BURIAN
Part Id: Reception
9 From repertoire to canon 211
P. E. EASTERLING
10 Tragedy adapted for stages and screens: the Renaissance to the present 228
PETER BURIAN
11 Tragedy in performance: nineteenth- and twentieth-century productions 284
FIONA MACINTOSH
12 Modern critical approaches to Greek tragedy 324
SIMON GOLDHILL
Glossary 348
Chronology 352
Texts, commentaries and translations 355
Works cited 3 59
Index 3 80
viii
ILLUSTRATIONS
page
x Stèle from Aixone, in honour of two chorëgoi. Photo: Epigraphical
Museum, Athens; reproduced by courtesy of the Ministry of Culture
and Science, Archaeological Receipts Fund, Athens 7
2 Attic calyx-crater with aw/os-player and chorus members or actors.
Malibu, Collections of the J. Paul Getty Museum 82.AE.83 12.
3 Sculptured base from Delos. Photo: Wim Swaan 50
4 Attic crater with 'Basle Dancers'. Basle, Antikenmuseum und Skulptur-
halleBS4i5 70
5 Fragments of Attic jar. Corinth Museum TI 14. Photo: American School
of Classical Studies, Athens, Corinth Excavations 71
6 Fifth-century representation of Aeschylus' Libation-Bearers. Copen-
hagen, National Museum of Denmark, Department of Near Eastern
and Classical Antiquities inv. no. 597 72.
7 The 'Pronomos Vase', showing a team of tragic actors costumed for the
satyr play. Naples, Museo Nazionale 32.40 inv. no. 81673. Photo:
François Lissarrague 73
8 Crater from Apulia, South Italy, probably depicting Dionysus. New
York, Metropolitan Museum of Art L.1988.81.4, Collection of Jan
Mitchell &C Sons 75
9 Apulian vase with comic actors. New York, Fleischman Collection
f56 75
10 Fourth-century Attic vase with scene derived from Euripides' Iphigeneia
among the Taurians. Ferrara, Museo Archeologico Nazionale di Spina
TI 145 inv. no. 3032 77
r 1 Jar from Heraclea with Medea escaping in her dragon chariot. Policoro,
Museo Nazionale Delia Siritide 35302 78
rz Early fourth-century South Italian crater with a more elaborate repre-
sentation of Medea's escape. Cleveland, Museum of Art, Leonard C.
Hanna Jr Fund 91.1 79
ix