The Politics of Greek Tragedy

This book addresses the political aspects of fifth-century Athenian tragedies, setting them in their immediate historical context. It is an important topic and one that only rarely and sporadically finds its way into accessible accounts of Greek tragedy.

 

Carter sets out to elucidate to a student and general audience how and why Athenian tragedy should be read as a political art form. The political content of ancient drama has been the subject of much scholarly debate in the last thirty years, but much of that debate is highly technical and inaccessible. Carter demonstrates that like the contemporary satirical comedy of Aristophanes, or indeed the sculptures of the Parthenon, tragedy involved a highly political dimension.

 

He provides stimulating and provocative analyses, from varied points of view, of the political aspect in several individual tragedies (always referred to in modern translations). To this he adds a chapter on the ‘reception’ of political tragedy, alluding to theatre and film productions of the Greek plays that have taken an overtly political stance within a modern context.