Ancient Greek Tragedy and its Reception

Euripides’ Hecuba is originally performed in the ancient theatre of Dionysus around 425 BC, during the Peloponnesian war. The moral and political corruption of the Athenian society at the time is strikingly reflected onto the ethos of Hecuba’s chaotic dramatic world. Euripides’ relocation of the events concluding the Trojan War from Troy to Thrace is counted among the most bold and successful Euripidean mythic innovations of the specific play. Thrace, a place charged with heavily negative associations in his contemporary Greek consciousness, functions as the most suitable context within which to set Hecuba’s drama and onto which to project Euripides’ problematization on the grim consequences of war onto the human identity. What is more, Euripides’ use of his actors’ skeue (costume and accoutrements) and hypocrisis
(gesture, movement) further promotes that theme as central in the play.
The Cypriot director Magdalena Zira chooses to restage Euripides’ play for a modern performance at NYU Tisch School of the Arts, Experimental Theatre Wing, in 2006. Her principal aim is to use Euripides’ play as a  political allegory for the contemporary war in Iraq. Her own directing gestures configuring the opsis of her adaptation are the key subject matter of the analysis. By focusing on the mechanics of dramatic space, the actors’ skeue, and hypocrisis, the analysis exemplifies the ways in
which the different opseis of Hecuba function as a mirror of the socio-political context of each performance and as vehicles of the strong political message of their creator (ancient and modern respectively). In the process, another fundamental feature of the ancient (and particularly Euripidean) theatre and of its modern reception is reaffirmed: its innate nature as political praxis.

One of the most powerful ways to remedy the forgetfulness that obscures ancient fragmentary drama, in other words to “establish remedies for forgetfulness” as Palamedes claims to have done for the Greeks in the fr. 578 from the homonymous but lost tragedy by Euripides, is to expose the ancient material to the circumstances of contemporary performance. The surviving fragments of ancient Greek dramas are pieces of text which by definition are out of context since they are dislocated parts of a traumatised ancient play: the connection between text and Trauma is considered to be both literal and metaphorical. Yet, there are elements of theatricality inherent to these fragments and this is why they have been used in contemporary performances in various ways and approaches. Theodoros Terzopoulos has used fragments of lost tragedies by Aeschylus to create the performance Epigonoi in 2003 which was first presented in Germany and then toured internationally. From a chorus of five men the suffering bodies of Achilles, Actaeon, Ajax, Heracles and Philoctetes stand out and expose the tragic fate of those who collide with the divine, while the female character of Europe watches the consequences of war, herself a victim of it. In this paper the use of ancient tragic fragments for the creation of contemporary performances will be discussed and evaluated whether it is an appropriate pathway to follow against letting ancient fragmentary drama be forgotten. After presenting and analysing Terzopoulos' Epigonoi, the performativity of fragments will be argued along with their suitability as theatrical material for contemporary dramaturgy that explores the issue of fragmentation in life and in the narrative and also the issue of Trauma itself.

This paper explores Martha Graham’s Cave of the Heart and Graham's approach to the Medea myth. It focuses especially on Graham’s decisions to situate Medea in a gynocentric world, not to include the children, and to make Medea’s sexual jealousy the central theme. I examine the similarities and differences between Martha Graham’s approach and that of Euripides and show that the two works have a different focus but bring about a similar effect: they both show Medea triumphant at the end, a woman who asserts her power by taking on both subhuman and superhuman features. The similarity of the endings serves in turn to underline basic differences in the two artists’ interests and approaches to the myth: Euripides focuses on the characters’ intellect and mental experience and questions sexual jealousy as being trivial and insignificant, while Martha Graham examines emotion through complex and unfamiliar movements of the body, showcases the overwhelming power of jealousy, and celebrates its intensity and importance.

This paper offers a close reading of ‘Orestes’, the earliest (1962–1966) of the monologues eventually included (after being published as separate volumes) in Yiannis Ritsos’ Fourth Dimension. Its principal aim is to explore Ritsos’ extensive reworking of the myth of the Atreids, especially as retold by the three great tragedians, in the light of existentialist philosophy and drama.

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  Ο Διόνυσος, υιός του θεού Δία και της θνητής Σεμέλης —θεός κι ο ίδιος απ' τη σύλληψη και τη γέννησή του— καταφθάνει στην πόλη των Θηβών απ' την Ασία, συνοδευόμενος από τις «Βάκχες», τις ακολούθους του. Αυτές, ενδεδυμένες με δέρματα ελαφιών («νεβρίδες») και κρατώντας στα χέρια τους θύρσο (κοντάρι τυλιγμένο με κισσό, σύμβολο και φορέα της θεϊκής δύναμης του Διονύσου), βιώνουν την έκσταση που τους προκαλεί η μέθεξη στα ιερά μυστήρια του θεού, ενόσω βρίσκονται σε κατάσταση ένθεης μανίας —έχοντας απελευθερώσει τον νου τους απ' τα δεσμά και τους κανόνες των εγκοσμίων, και έχοντας συνενωθεί σ' ένα σώμα και σε μια ψυχή, η οποία πάλλεται στον ρυθμό των τυμπάνων και δονείται απ' το γλυκό κελάηδημα των φρυγικών αυλών. Σκοπός του θεού είναι να μυήσει τη Θήβα, πόλη της καταγωγής του, πρώτη ανάμεσα σ' όλη την Ελλάδα στη νέα αυτή ελευθεριάζουσα λατρεία.

  Με το τελευταίο του έργο, τις «Βάκχες», ο Ευριπίδης εισάγει «καινά δαιμόνια» στη γνωσιολογία της αττικής Τραγωδίας αλλά και στη δομή της θεατρικής της πράξης, προσπαθώντας ταυτοχρόνως να τα εισαγάγει και στον τρόπο αντίληψης και σκέψης των θεατών· περισσότερο, ίσως, για να τους προειδοποιήσει, παρά για να τους μεταρρυθμίσει γνωσιολογικώς. Οι «Βάκχες» αποτελούν ίσως περισσότερο μια πολιτισμική κραυγή αγωνίας και μια ποιητική διαμαρτυρία απέναντι στο διαφαινόμενο τέλος της ίδιας της αττικής Τραγωδίας, της αθηναϊκής δημοκρατίας και του κλασικού ελληνισμού, και λιγότερο ένα αμιγώς διδακτικό περιεχόμενο με σκοπό τη νοητική αυτοβελτίωση εκάστου εκ των θεατών. Ο Ευριπίδης νεωτερίζει, ανασκευάζοντας τους μηχανισμούς προσληψιμότητας (και, εν μέρει, και αισθητικής) της αρχαίας αττικής Τραγωδίας· την «καταργεί» ως διακριτό είδος ποιητικής και θεατρικής δημιουργίας και την «ενταφιάζει» (ίσως προσδοκώντας μια πιθανή επαναγέννεσή της στο μέλλον, με τρόπο παρόμοιο με τη διπλή γένεση του Διονύσου, του δημιουργού του θεάτρου), λίγο μόλις καιρό πριν κι ο ίδιος πεθάνει με τρόπο παρόμοιο με αυτόν του πρωταγωνιστή του δράματος.

  Tο βιβλίο περιλαμβάνει το αρχικό (μερικώς ανακατασκευασμένο) αρχαίο κείμενο των "Βακχών", σε έμμετρη μετάφραση στα νέα ελληνικά. Η μετάφραση συνοδεύεται από τον σχολιασμό ενός επιλεγμένου αριθμού στίχων και από έναν εκτενή Πρόλογο —στον οποίο αναλύονται οι «Βάκχες» και το περιεχόμενό τους, συμπεριλαμβανομένης μιας σύνθετης ερμηνευτικής θέωρησης της τραγωδίας.

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  The god Dionysus —son of Zeus and of the mortal woman Semele— arrives in the city of Thebes from Asia, impersonating a mortal and accompanied by the "Bacchae", his female followers. The latter, clad in deer skins and holding in their hands the "thyrsus" (a wooden staff wrapped in ivy, the symbol and the carrier of the divine power of Dionysus), experience the ecstasy by participating in the sacred mysteries of the god Dionysus, while being at the same time in a state of divine madness —after having freed their mind from the worldly bonds and rules, united in one body and one soul; their body pulsating in the rhythm of the drums, and vibrating to the sweet warbling of the Phrygian flutes. The purpose of Dionysus is to initiate Thebes, his natal city, first among all of Greece, in his new liberating cult.

  In his last work, the "Bacchae", Euripides introduces novelties in the epistemology of the Attic Tragedy as well as in the structure of its theatrical representation; at the same time, he tries to introduce these novelties in the way of perception and thinking of the spectators (perhaps, more in an effort to warn them, rather than to reform their mindset). The "Bacchae" can be considered more as a cultural cry of agony as well as a poetic protest against the looming end of the Attic Tragedy itself, the end of the Athenian democracy and the end of the classical Hellenism, and less as a purely didactic content which aims at the intellectual self-improvement of the spectators. Euripides brutally modernizes and reconstructs the mechanisms of the theatrical receptivity (and, in part, of the aesthetics) of the ancient Attic Tragedy; he "abolishes" it as a distinct kind of poetic and theatrical creation, and "buries" it (perhaps anticipating its possible rebirth in the future, in a manner similar to the double birth of Dionysus, the creator of the theater), shortly before he himself dies, in a manner similar to that of the protagonist of the drama.

  This book includes the original (partially reconstructed) ancient text of the "Bacchae", translated side-by-side in modern greek, in verse. The translation is accompanied by commentary on a selected number of verses, and by an extensive Prologue (both in modern greek) —in which the "Bacchae" and its contents are analyzed, including a composite interpretive view of the tragedy.

Warum erzählt Hugo von Hofmannsthal um 1900 Geschichten noch einmal, die die Welt seit über 2500 Jahren kennt? Diese Frage führt ins Herz dieser Untersuchung, die einen neuen Zugriff auf Hofmannsthals Poetologie anhand seiner irritierend archaischen und ästhetisch so beweglichen Mythosvariationen der Jahrhundertwende vorschlägt. Die hier in den Blick genommenen Dramen suchen in einem ersten Schritt den Dialog mit ihren stets hochkarätigen Intertexten (Sophokles, Euripides, Aischylos, Nietzsche, Bachofen, Freud). Darüber hinaus aber generieren Hofmannsthals Stücke in der Friktion von theatralem und skripturalem Raum, Ritualität und Intertextualität zunächst den Aufbau (Figuration), fi nal jedoch den notwendigen Zerfall (Defi guration) der entworfenen Form (s)einer Mythosvariation. Das im Titel aufgenommene Zerstörende Zitieren beschreibt darum zum einen Hofmannsthals ebenso philologische wie poetische Technik im Umgang mit antiken Quellen, kulturphilosophischen Vordenkern und wissenschaftlichen Diskursen. Zum anderen zielt der Begriff auf die spezifi sche Darstellungsbewegung: In seinen Dramen führt Hofmanns-thal anhand des Scheiterns bestimmter repräsentationaler Formen den Einbruch von Präsenz in den Raum der Repräsentation vor. Die Abfolge von textgenerierender Figuration (Repräsentation) und einbrechender Defi guration (Numinoses, Präsenz) evoziert ein iteratives und darin genuin mythisches Erzählen. ANTONIA EDER, Studium der Neueren deutschen Literatur, Philosophie, Politologie und Psychologie an der Sorbonne IV, Paris und FU Berlin, Promotion 2010 mit vorliegender Arbeit an der Universität Tübingen.

This paper assumes a problematic thesis: the influence of the nietzschean philosophy on the culture of the XXth century produced a new tragic model, which could be named Dionysian Tragedy. According to Jorge Dubatti’s philosophy of the theatre, we think that developing a philosophy of the Dionysian Tragedy is quite important in order to understand this new genre and its vital involvements. The present study must be considered as an early draft which brings us closer to this polemic idea. Thus, we are presenting in a rough and provocative way two of the characteristics which may be present in the Dionysian Tragedy: its auratic nature, linked with the Eternal Recurrence and the Eternal Instant of the Art, and its close and nuclear connection with amor fati.

Uredniško vodilo pri izdelovanju te knjige je bilo posredovati bralcem Hribovškov prevod Sofoklove Antigone v obliki, ki bo kolikor mogoče skladna z rokopisom in s prevajalčevim namenom. Prevajalec, ki je rokopis sam oblikoval tako rekoč kot knjigo in ga opremil z najnujnejšim komentarjem, se je namreč zavestno odločil za prepesnitev, za pesniški in ne za filološki prevod; to je očitno tako iz njegovih »Pripomb k prevodu« kot tudi iz prve – in doslej edine – kritike prevoda, pisma njegovega mentorja Janeza Remica. Vzporedno s slovenskim je objavljeno tudi besedilo grškega izvirnika, rekonstruirano s pomočjo standardne Dain-Mazonove izdaje v zbirki Les Belles Lettres, kar bralcu omogoča boljši vpogled v Hribovškovo prevajalsko metodo.

Rokopisna oblika besedila je v natisu spremenjena v tem, da so imena govorečih oseb pomaknjena z levega roba med tekoče besedilo, dvopičja za njimi, ki uvajajo replike, pa so opuščena. Oštevilčenje, ki ga v rokopisu ni, je dodano za večjo preglednost besedila in za lažjo uporabo spremne študije. Številke strani so pomaknjene z vrha strani na dno. Ohranjene so oblike grških imen iz rokopisa (Zeus; Haimon; Polineikes; Teiresias; nominativi Antigone, Ismene, Evridike, Kreon), ki so odraz tedanjih pravopisnih norm, pa tudi nedorečenosti (npr. Dionizos, Pallada), a niso samo jezikovni in kulturni dokument časa, temveč dajejo besedilu značilen kolorit. V skrajno redkih primerih so bili potrebni lektorski popravki pri postavljanju ločil, pri čemer so bila upoštevana pravila iz časa, ko je prevod nastal. Prevajalčeve (redke) napake in lastne popravke »tehničnega« besedila (oštevilčenja strani) ta izdaja izpušča.

Prevajalec sam opozarja na posebnost zborskih partij in liričnih vložkov, ki jih je prevajal v rimah. Ti deli besedila (v Antigoni je to šest zborskih pesmi in dva komosa, žalostinki, ki ju izvajata izmenoma zbor in posamezen dramski lik) so bili izvorno namenjeni petju: po zgledu nekaterih uveljavljenih izdaj grških tragedij so v tej knjigi natisnjeni ležeče. Če so besede, ki jih je vodja zbora prvotno govoril (npr. verzi 178–181), prevedene v rimanih verzih, so v skladu s prevajalčevo predstavo prav tako natisnjene ležeče.

V knjigi je reproduciran odlomek iz Hribovškovega rokopisa, ki naj bralcu odkrije vidno sled pesnikovega največjega prevajalskega dela in mu tudi na ta način približa njegov svet.

This paper makes an initial attempt to redescribe the failure of racial equality in America by making use of the idea of tragedy. I offer a reading of Antigone to stabilize the appropriateness of three ideas in support of reading the history of race in America as tragic: the problem of one thought too many, pollution, and the question, "was it worth it?" I argue, following James Baldwin, that the tragedy of race in America is initiated by the idea of white people who think they are white and that this conviction, initializes the impact of the above three ideas resulting in a society of people lacking in, as defined by Bernard Williams, agent-regret, and, thus, lacking shame.

La proposition consiste à rechercher les catégories indiquées dans le cadre de conditions déterminées d’énonciation. Il s’agit de réfléchir autour de la notion d’agent en considérant deux figures singulières : le héros tragique et le citoyen démocratique, dont les caractères nous conduisent à la situation de l’Athènes du Ve siècle. En conséquence, le problème de la volonté et la constitution d’une notion d’agent responsable seront analysés à partir de l’intersection entre le domaine du discours tragique et le domaine de l’activité politique. Dans la conjonction de ces deux domaines, le problème crucial réside en la décision comme un processus subjectif. Notre idée centrale est que la figure du héros tragique évoque, avec ambiguïté, une antithèse politique mais aussi une métaphore du citoyen démocratique. Le héros tragique est une antithèse du citoyen démocratique parce que celui-ci prend uniquement des décisions comme partie d’une organisation collective, tandis que celui-là se présente en général sous une forme tyrannique. Mais le héros tragique est aussi métaphore du citoyen démocratique dans la mesure dans laquelle le processus subjectif réalisé par le héros opère comme recours de pensée des facteurs impliqués dans la prise de décision des citoyens réunis dans l’assemblée athénienne.

This chapter examines Virgilio Piñera’s Electra Garrigó, written in 1941 but staged in Cuba before and after the revolution led by Fidel Castro and Che Guevara. The play features Greek tragedy’s choral structure alongside distinctive Cuban elements: Aegithus kills Agamemnon in a ritual that mimics a cockfight, Orestes poisons Clytemnestra with a papaya, and the chorus sing to the tune of the ‘Guantanamera’. I discuss the ways in which Piñera’s unique mixture of Cuban and classical unsettles the original Greek text, and the manner in which he challenged the notion and relevance of a ‘classic’ for modern Cuban theatre. Though reviled in its initial performance, Electra Garrigó, which depicts a young generation that engineers the death of its parents, was later upheld as a powerful symbol of the revolution and consciously re-performed before foreign luminaries such as Jean-Paul Sartre and Simone de Beauvoir as being emblematic of the transformed nation.

The Greek Trilogy of Luis Alfaro gathers together for the first time the three 'Greek' plays of the MacArthur Genius Award-winning Chicanx playwright and performance artist.

Based respectively on Sophocles' Electra and Oedipus, and Euripides' Medea, Alfaro's Electricidad, Oedipus El Rey, and Mojada transplant ancient themes and problems into the 21st century streets of Los Angeles and New York, in order to give voice to the concerns of the Chicanx and wider Latinx communities.

From performances around the world including sold-out runs at New York's Public Theater, these texts are extremely important to those studying classical reception, Greek theatre and Chicanx writers. This unique anthology features definitive editions of all three plays alongside a comprehensive introduction which provides a critical overview of Luis Alfaro's work, accentuating not only the unique nature of these three 'urban' adaptations of ancient Greek tragedy but also the manner in which they address present-day Chicanx and Latinx socio-political realities across the United States.

A brief introduction to each play and its overall themes precedes the text of the drama. The anthology concludes with exclusive supplementary material aimed at enhancing understanding of Alfaro's plays: a 'Performance History' timeline outlining the performance history of the plays; an alphabetical 'Glossary' explaining the most common terms in Spanish and Spanglish appearing in each play; and a 'Further Reading' list providing primary and secondary bibliography for each play.

The anthology is completed by a new interview with Alfaro which addresses key topics such as Alfaro's engagement with ancient Greek drama and his work with Chicanx communities across the United States, thus providing a critical contextualisation of these critically-acclaimed plays.

W. B. Yeats’s ‘King Oedipus’ is one of the most influential receptions of Greek tragedy in modern times. For this reason a large amount of scholarship surrounds it, but the literature has not explained what Yeats’s motivations were for appropriating the ‘Oedipus Rex’. This means that there is no current understanding for why Yeats’s ‘King Oedipus’ ever came about as an act of classical reception, and it has led to misinterpretations of events in the text’s genesis. The purpose of this study is to account for Yeats’s motivations and to emend the scholarship’s misreadings. This is achieved by explicating the link between the ‘Oedipus Rex’ and Yeats’s thoughts on Irish nationalism with its relation to censorship in Britain, which forms the basis of his motivations for appropriating the play. Once these factors are established, the events encompassing the writing of Yeats’s ‘Oedipus’ in its early years (1904-1912) are interpreted through the motivation for its creation. This shows how a race developed between Irish and British dramatists in attempting to stage the first Anglophone version. Yeats’s abandonment of the play in 1912 (for fourteen years) is explained through the loss of his motivations once Britain staged it first. These factors, amongst others, have been overlooked or inadequately explained by scholars because Yeats’s ‘Oedipus’ has not been addressed through his reasons for writing it. By tying together his motivations with the genesis of the text, this study explains the ‘King Oedipus’ in its essence as a work that receives the ‘Oedipus Rex’.

2019-"Euripides en el espejo: la imagen de Eurípides ὁ γνωμολογικώτατος fuera de Eurípides" Desde los inicios de la literatura griega las reflexiones generales o gnomai tienen una posición privilegiada, sobre todo en los géneros que reproducen, en mayor o menor medida, el lenguaje hablado; pero no únicamente en estos, ya que también aparecen utilizadas en autores como Safo, Teognis, Píndaro, entre otros, e incluso en autores de prosa como Tucídides, Aquiles Tacio, etc.

There is a long history of the uses of the term 'catharsis'. Nowadays the term usually designates a process by which the production of strong emotions by adequate representations (literature, cinema, videogames, etc.) or by real events frees the subject (the reader, the spectator, the gamer, etc.) of those very emotions. Freud also had a specific understanding of what catharsis means, and he used the word to designate what would later become the “psychoanalytic method”. However, there is a long way between those modern understandings of catharsis and the original meaning Aristotle gave to the term in his ‘Poetics’. According to Aristotle, the catharsis produced by tragedy is linked to the emotions of pity and fear. Although pity and fear are two opposite affects depending on the position of the subject relatively to an event, the spectator of the tragedy is bound to experience both of them simultaneously because of the ethical similarity the playwright must keep between him and the tragic hero. But pity and fear are also two opposite affects on the physiological level: pity is a warm affect, fear a cold one. Catharsis is then a physiological balancing of pity by fear, of warmth by cold, and reciprocally, and this continuous suppression of excesses of temperature through the tragic imitation, while bringing a feeling of relief and pleasure, rids the spectator of all excessive affects. This physiological process of catharsis, as Aristotle understood it, has little to do with the current acceptions of the notion.

Thesis:
Edward Albee claims in the subtitle of his drama, The Goat or Who is Sylvia?, that the play falls within the category of tragedy. In this abstract of my final thesis, I review this claim, by applying Aristotle's famous definition of Tragedy in Poetics to The Goat and comparing The Goat to other drama. Through this review I can gain a deeper understanding of whether Albee's claim holds up in Aristotle's definition, that is still widely recognized today. Another possibility may be that Albee's intention was to trick the recipient, or be ironic and critical of society by claiming such an absolute statement.

Elena così come ce la racconta Euripide è senza dubbio un dramma non facile, non solo perché si confronta con uno dei miti più conosciuti della classicità, ma anche perché approfondisce un filone secondario del mito. È una tragedia anomala: non vi sono morti imminenti o delitti di sangue da vendicare, per non parlare del lieto fine che vede i protagonisti tornare felici e contenti a Sparta. Tuttavia attraverso un’attenta analisi e leggendo il testo fra le righe, possiamo ben ravvederci da giudizi affrettati e toccare con mano l’altra faccia della medaglia: la vacuità dell’agire umano. Esistono forse sentimenti più tragici?

In LADIES' GREEK, Yopie Prins illuminates a culture of female classical literacy that emerged in the second half of the nineteenth century, during the formation of women’s colleges on both sides of the Atlantic. Why did Victorian women of letters desire to learn ancient Greek, a “dead” language written in a strange alphabet and no longer spoken? In the words of Elizabeth Barrett Browning, they wrote “some Greek upon the margin—lady’s Greek, without the accents.” Yet in the margins of classical scholarship they discovered other ways of knowing, and not knowing, Greek. Mediating between professional philology and the popularization of classics, these passionate amateurs became an important medium for classical transmission.

Combining archival research on the entry of women into Greek studies in Victorian England and America with a literary interest in their translations of Greek tragedy, Prins demonstrates how women turned to this genre to perform a passion for ancient Greek, full of eros and pathos. She focuses on five tragedies—Agamemnon, Prometheus Bound, Electra, Hippolytus, and The Bacchae—to analyze a wide range of translational practices by women and to explore the ongoing legacy of Ladies’ Greek. Key figures in this story include Barrett Browning and Virginia Woolf, Janet Case and Jane Harrison, Edith Hamilton and Eva Palmer, and A. Mary F. Robinson and H.D. The book also features numerous illustrations, including photographs of early performances of Greek tragedy at women’s colleges.

The first comparative study of Anglo-American Hellenism, Ladies’ Greek opens up new perspectives in transatlantic Victorian studies and the study of classical reception, translation, and gender.

REVIEWS
"The story of 'ladies' Greek', writes Yopie Prins in this fascinating academic study, goes hand in hand with that of the progress made in women’s education during the second half of the 19th century."
—Francesca Wade, Daily Telegraph

"[A] splendid new study of late 19th- and early 20th-century female translators of ancient Greek tragedy. . . . Prins gives a fascinating account of the importance of Greek tragedy in translation and theatrical production in the colleges of higher education for women that emerged in this period."
—Emily Wilson, Guardian

"[An] excellent new book. . . . [Prins] brings a perspective combination of biographical insight and historical overview."
—John Kerrigan, London Review of Books

"In Yopie Prins' remarkably wide-ranging, even scandalously scholarly work, she has collected a series of vivid tableaux vivant featuring translations and performances of Greek tragedies by 19th- and early 20th-century women, both in Britain and America."
—Mary Townsend, Education & Culture Review

"Prins has a gift for wordplay and turns of phrase . . . that can open up new speculative possibilities as we ask why women were so attracted to learning Greek. . . . [An] important study."
—Elizabeth Helsinger, Modern Philology

"Ladies’ Greek is an exceptional piece of work. Deftly written, insightful and expansive, the book demonstrates Prins’ excellence as a scholar. Prins has produced more than outstanding scholarship, though: her series of encounters with archival materials and the lives and works of past women they represent is both compelling and moving. I will confess that the book took some time to get through, but that is chiefly because I found myself re-reading some of the passages again and again as one might do a great piece of literature. . . . A triumph."
—David Bullen, Classical Review

"A wonderful demonstration of archival research, literary history, and close reading, Ladies’ Greek takes the discipline of classical reception to a new level. Like the subjects she describes, Prins breathes new life into dead papers, her own dazzling writing dancing across the page."
—Jennifer Wallace, Modern Language Quarterly

"Ladies' Greek is remarkable for its sensitive and subtle discussion of the controversial process of translating and performing dramatic texts written in a dead language whose study was at first available only to men."—Helene P. Foley, Barnard College

"Combining revelatory archival work and close literary readings, Ladies' Greek tells a riveting story of desire and insecurity, scholarship and theater, friendship and poetry."—Simon Goldhill, University of Cambridge

"Ladies' Greek is the resounding answer to Woolf’s ‘On Not Knowing Greek.’ What was unleashed when women as well as men, on both sides of the Atlantic, came to intimately know their beloved Greek tragedies? Prins recreates the burgeoning culture of translation and re-enactment at women’s colleges, reviving enthusiasms of the forgotten and famous, from A. Mary F. Robinson to Elizabeth Barrett Browning. This is a definitive literary history that will influence future scholars, but any reader may binge on it like a beautiful BBC drama."—Alison Booth, University of Virginia

"This original, elegant, and beautifully written book combines deep classical learning and superb transatlantic archival research to produce a wonderful account of Victorian women's intense love affair with ancient Greek. Yopie Prins's classical expertise helps scholars who cannot read Greek toward magnificent new literary interpretations."—Mary Loeffelholz, Northeastern University

"Ladies' Greek is a highly anticipated, wide-ranging, and meticulously researched book. Its compelling and original conclusion makes a significant contribution to our understanding of Victorian Hellenism."—Laura McClure, University of Wisconsin–Madison

Tragedy is the least noticed and talked about in contemporary literature. Tragedy was born as a genre when Aristotle constructed the theoretical premises upon which Tragedy is based. Perhaps, as argued by some, the rise of novel marked the death of tragedy. However, it is found that tragedy did not die rather was re-born (Steiner, 45; Brockmann, 23) to suit the modern life. The paper traces the growth of the poetics of Tragedy from Plato to the contemporary period, and postulates that from Renaissance to the present day, the literature in English has shifted piecemeal and ultimately revolted against Aristotle's definition of tragedy.

Il faut sauver la tragédie grecque de toute la gnose philosophique et tragique qui l'accable depuis près de trois siècles. Il faut la sauver de notre conception moderne de la littérature et du théâtre. Il faut la sauver de nous-mêmes pour la retrouver ailleurs, très loin, dans les lieux les plus improbables : le nô japonais, la messe catholique, la psychanalyse freudienne… À moins qu'elle ne soit déjà plus nulle part.
Car la tragédie est aussi introuvable que le tombeau d’Œdipe, ce tombeau que Sophocle prit pour thème de sa pièce ultime, laquelle est également la dernière tragédie grecque connue.
Avec Œdipe à Colone pour fil conducteur, ce livre raconte l’histoire édifiante d’une incompréhension à laquelle nous sommes voués. Il révèle les incroyables trahisons et mutilations dont ces chefs-d’oeuvre furent les victimes et propose en retour quelques thèses - ou hérésies – susceptibles de bouleverser non seulement notre vision de la tragédie, mais notre conception même de la littérature et de ses pouvoirs – sur les lieux, les corps et les dieux.
Nul détour n’est aujourd’hui si troublant ni si salutaire.

"This chapter reconstructs, for the fist time, the history of crucial intellectual controversies about the value and meaning of Greek tragedy in general and Sophocles' Oedipus Rex in particular in 16th- and 17th- century Europe, from Joachim Camerarius and Philipp Melanchthon to André Dacier, in the context of the developments in early modern classical scholarship, literary criticism, and dramatic theory discussed in the previous chapters of the book.

(1.) 'Das ‘Problem’ und erste Lösungsversuche'
(2.) 'Ein frommer Wunsch oder: Camerarius versus Melanchthon, Winshemius, Rataller und Lalamantius'
(3.) 'Verhängnisvolle Gedankengänge  oder: Robortello  versus  Vettori'
(4.) 'Klassizistisches Ringen: Scudéry und La Mesnardière versus Corneille'
(5.) 'Die ‘Lösung’: André Dacier'""""

This article examines Kamila Shamsie's adaptation of Sophocles' Antigone in Home Fire (2017), a novel focused on Muslim identity, Islamophobia, and citizenship rights in contemporary Britain. It demonstrates that this novel is a multimedia work full of theatrical traces: a literary archive that preserves the dramatic quality of Sophocles' play but also encompasses multiple other forms of media and performance, from theatre and television to social media. The article focuses not so much on how Shamsie has adapted the plot of Antigone but on her reworking of tragedy's formal features or structures, such as dialogue, the chorus, and the messenger speech. In this polyphonic novel, such multimedia theatricality facilitates something that Greek tragedy itself produces: a contestation of multiple voices for audiences to hear, critique, and put against their own. Shamsie's manipulation of tragic form thus contributes to Home Fire's political import.

İlk defa ortaya çıkışı gibi kelime anlamı da tartışmalı olan tragedya bir tiyatro türü olarak binlerce yıldır seyircilerin beğenisine sunulmaktadır. Birçok dilde ortak olan ve felaket anlamına gelen ‘trajedi’ kelimesi de bu oyun türünden gelir. Çünkü neredeyse bütün tragedyaların ortak noktası insanın başına gelen felaketlerdir. Bu türün elimize ulaşabilen ilk örnekleri oldukça çarpıcıdır ve uzun süre tragedyanın nasıl olması gerektiği ile ilgili şablon vazifesi görmüştür. Belirli dönemlerde duraklamalar yaşansa da, tragedya tarih boyunca gelişimini devam ettirmiştir. En parlak dönemlerinden birini 16. yüzyılın sonlarında İngiltere’de yaşamıştır. Bu dönem, tiyatronun fiziksel şartlarında çok önemli değişimlere sahne olduğu için, sadece tragedya için değil diğer oyun türleri için de oldukça şanslı bir dönemdir. 19. yüzyıl düşünce dünyasının tragedyayı yeniden anlamlandırması ile beraber türün büyük bir değişime uğradığını söylemek mümkündür. Bu dönem verilen eserler ilk tragedya örnekleri ile yapısal olarak büyük farklılıklar içermektedir. Bu çalışmada antik Yunanistan’dan Sofokles’in Thebai Üçlemesi, Elizabeth Çağından Shakespeare’in Macbeth oyunu ve modern dönemden Arthur Miller’ın kaleme aldığı Satıcının Ölümü adlı eserler benzerlik ve farklılıklar açısından karşılaştırılacaktır.

Cfr. collegamento https://amzn.to/39KqePH
Il presente documento contiene un saggio della parafrasi e del commento del testo euripideo delle Supplici, che comparirà nel volume di prossima pubblicazione :
  LE TRAGEDIE TEBANE – Volume II
  Sofocle. Antigone - Euripide. Supplici
Già pubblicato il volume :
  LE TRAGEDIE TEBANE – Volume I
  Euripide. Fenicie – Eschilo. Sette contro Tebe
Il mio personale progetto è la pubblicazione in tre volumi delle parafrasi - con commento ed introduzione - alle tragedie tebane.

Questo volume rappresenta un piccolo dono offerto da alcuni allievi a Paola Volpe come testimonianza di gratitudine nei confronti di colei che è loro guida nell’attività di studio e di ricerca svolta presso l’Ateneo salernitano. Non a caso gli autori (Eschilo e Plutarco) oggetto dei saggi qui raccolti rappresentano due costanti nell’ampio e variegato campo di indagine della studiosa alla quale sono dedicati. Il volume è arricchito dalla prefazione di Aurelio Pérez Jiménez, legato a Paola Volpe da un lungo rapporto di amicizia e di collaborazione scientifica.

Odysseus’ Scar and Erich Auerbach’s ‘Searchlight’ — Abstract

The first chapter of E. Auerbach’s Mimesis (“Odysseus’ scar”) is an impressive tour de force in which the great German philologist lays out the principles and the tools of his method. It is also a subtle piece of militant criticism, where the primacy of the Judaic tradition over classical culture is clearly advocated. This paper investigates some of the peculiarities of Auerbach’s anticlassical stance, which may even owe something to F. Nietzsche’s Birth of Tragedy.