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, and most examples are drawn from the same selection of plays.

‘As a resource for teachers it is invaluable … Where else can such a wealth be found in one volume on tragedy?’

Source: JACT Review

‘Classical scholars will find much to think about … and their students will find it invaluable. [The] book contains chapters that will launch a thousand essays. One may only hope that non-classicists will also be encouraged to explore the world of tragedy.’

Source: The Times Literary Supplement

‘… an innovative and authoritative work which not only is easily the and paedagogically most useful handbook for the study of this most influential of Greek cultural productions; in addition, the contributors all forward the restless debate on tragedy and its heritage as they delineate it’.

Source: The Anglo-Hellenic Review