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Originally read for university. Classic, helped me greatly, but repetitive.
If you are someone who has read Greek tragedy on your own and enjoyed it, then this book may be for you. It is almost impossible for someone without a solid grounding in Greek culture, history, mythology, and philosophy to fully grasp the tragedies. Goldhill's literary criticism of the tragedies is revelatory. He opens up the tragedies to reveal layer upon layer of subtext. His discussion of the use of language in The Oresteia is near-breathtaking and this book will make one see the masterworks
For me, Greek Tragedy becomes more compelling the more I learn about it.Goldhill provides a deep and sophisticated analysis of many themes that may not be apparent to a non-academic like myself. For example, he discusses the difference between η οικια και η πολις, home & city and what that meant for men and women in 5th Century BCE Athens. He relates in directly to Creon and Antigone in Sophocles Antigone doing likewise with φιλος και εχθρος - friend & enemy. I appreciated his discussion of how
Stimulating and intelligent combination of general critical principles relevant to Greek tragedy, specific readings, and cultural context, influenced both by structuralist anthropology and post/deconstructuralist literary criticism. The main lesson of the book is that Greek tragedies are not simple fables with unambiguous morals, but complex and ambivalent discussions, admitting various interpretations. Particularly strong was the discussion of the Oresteia in the first two chapters, the first o...
Enjoyed the first two essays a lot, but it got pretty dry and technical and repetitive after that.
This book aims to apply cutting edge, post-structuralist theory to the study of Greek tragedy and the principal result of this is an unhelpful emphasis on the ambivalence of tragic textuality. He claims this ambivalence is related to the cognitive flux of the fifth century, plausible but also an easy way to cut the process of interpretation short with only simplistic results. Theory does provide Goldhill with the apparatus to convincingly 'deconstruct' the totalizing scholarship of the likes of
