A Companion to Tragedy

Traverses a range of methodological approaches and historical contexts in an attempt to provide an overview of what is substantially a characteristically western art form. Expertly edited Companion. (Notes and Queries, December 2009) These essays, as would be expected from their authors, manifest a high standard of scholarship and familiarity with current understandings.... The volume has a place on the desk of every reference librarian at the college and university level." (Bryn Mawr Classical Review) The arrangement of the contents and an index that provides coverage of all the essays, allows immediate targeting of specific topics and quick referencing, whilst in its entirety the book provides an excellent survey of tragedy as it is currently studied. Aimed primarily at undergraduates and useful to postgraduates needing to orientate themselves in the scholarship of this area, this title is a useful addition to the academic library. (Reference Reviews)

Rebecca Bushnell is Dean of the School of Arts and Sciences and Professor of English at the University of Pennsylvania. Her previous publications include Prophesying Tragedy: Sign and Voice in Sophocles Theban Plays (1988), Tragedies of Tyrants: Political Thought and Theater in the English Renaissance (1990), A Culture of Teaching: Early Modern Humanism in Theory and Practice (1996), and Green Desire: Imagining Early Modern English Gardens (2003).

Notes on Contributors viii Acknowledgments xii Introduction 1 Rebecca Bushnell Tragic Thought Part I Tragedy and the Gods 5 1 Greek Tragedy and Ritual 7 Christiane Sourvinou-Inwood 2 Tragedy and Dionysus 25 Richard Seaford Part II Tragedy, Philosophy, and Psychoanalysis 39 3 Aristotles Poetics: A Defense of Tragic Fiction 41 Kathy Eden 4 The Greatness and Limits of Hegels Theory of Tragedy 51 Mark W. Roche 5 Nietzsche and Tragedy 68 James I. Porter 6 Tragedy and Psychoanalysis: Freud and Lacan 88 Julia Reinhard Lupton Part III Tragedy and History 107 7 Tragedy and City 109 Deborah Boedeker and Kurt Raaflaub 8 Tragedy and Materialist Thought 128 Hugh Grady 9 Tragedy and Feminism 145 Victoria Wohl Tragedy in History Part IV Tragedy in Antiquity 161 10 Tragedy and Myth 163 Alan H. Sommerstein 11 Tragedy and Epic 181 Ruth Scodel 12 Tragedy in Performance 198 Michael R. Halleran 13 The Tragic Choral Group: Dramatic Roles and Social Functions 215 Claude Calame, translated by Dan Edelstein 14 Women in Greek Tragedy 234 Sheila Murnaghan 15 Aristophanes, Old Comedy, and Greek Tragedy 251 Ralph M. Rosen 16 Roman Tragedy 269 Alessandro Schiesaro Part V Renaissance and Baroque Tragedy 287 17 The Fall of Princes: The Classical and Medieval Roots of English Renaissance Tragedy 289 Rebecca Bushnell 18 Something is Rotten: English Renaissance Tragedies of State 307 Matthew H. Wikander 19 English Revenge Tragedy 328 Michael Neill 20 Spanish Golden Age Tragedy: From Cervantes to Calderon 351 Margaret R. Greer Part VI Neoclassical and Romantic Tragedy 371 21 Neoclassical Dramatic Theory in Seventeenth-Century France 373 Richard E. Goodkin 22 French Neoclassical Tragedy: Corneille/Racine 393 Mitchell Greenberg 23 Romantic Tragic Drama and its Eighteenth-Century Precursors: Remaking British Tragedy 411 Jeffrey N. Cox 24 German Classical Tragedy: Lessing, Goethe, Schiller, Kleist, and Bchner 435 Simon Richter 25 French Romantic Tragedy 452 Barbara T. Cooper Part VII Tragedy and Modernity 469 26 Modern Theater and the Tragic in Europe 471 Gail Finney 27 Tragedy in the Modern American Theater 488 Brenda Murphy 28 Using Tragedy against its Makers: Some African and Caribbean Instances 505 Timothy J. Reiss Index 537