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Greek Tragedy

By: Elizabeth Vandiver, The Great Courses
Narrated by: Elizabeth Vandiver
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Summary

Greek tragedy was a dramatic form that flourished for less than a full century. And yet it remains vibrant, alive, and productive today. And the form's masterpieces help us - as perhaps they helped their original audiences - grasp a fuller sense of the terror and wonder of life. Professor Vandiver has designed these 24 rich and rewarding lectures to give you a full overview of Greek tragedy, both in its original setting and as a lasting contribution to the artistic exploration of the human condition. You'll learn to see Greek tragedy as a genre in its cultural context. What is tragedy's deeper historical background? Did it grow out of rituals honoring the god Dionysus, as is so often said? How did Aeschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides each make unique contributions to tragedy's expressive power?

You'll also uncover what scholarship can reveal about the actual performance of Greek tragedy, including its physical and ritual settings, actors and acting methods, conventions of staging and stagecraft, and even how productions were financed. And with this solid background in place, you'll explore a broad group of tragedies in close detail. In particular, you'll see how individual tragedies used traditional myths (often tales from the Trojan War), and what Aeschylus, Sophocles, or Euripides intended to accomplish by changing or adding to the basic story. You'll examine what certain tragedies imply about the world of 5th-century Athens and the importance, in turn, of the cultural background for explaining those tragedies.

PLEASE NOTE: When you purchase this title, the accompanying reference material will be available in your Library section along with the audio.

©2000 The Teaching Company, LLC (P)2000 The Great Courses

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Made my journey to work this month a pleasure

Very engaging: rigorous and well read. I will enjoy Greek tragedy immeasurably more as a result of Professor Vandivers efforts

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Magnificent!

Well, I could go on at length about how brilliant this course is. Just take my word for it, as someone with a lifetime's experience of universities and university teaching. As an introduction to Greek Tragedy this course is simply stunning. EV lectures with clarity and enthusiasm. She makes several original contributions to the subject and uses the Greek text in a way that is completely accessible to those with no Greek. She is particularly good in contextualising the plays in their original Athenian and cultural context. If you have not yet read the plays, well, you would immediately want to. If you have read them already, well, you would want to read them again with so much more appreciation.

I have now completed all six of EV's Great Courses. As a non-specialist I feel I have had an amazing introduction to classical Greek (and with the Vergil a little bit of Roman) civilisation. I am enormously grateful. A fantastic investment. Now I should listen to them all over again. Thank you, EV!

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  • KC
  • 06-10-22

Very informative and interesting

Elizabeth Vandiver is a fantastic tutor, she's very passionate about the subject and delivers great deal of information in a very engaging way. I never get bored listening to her, opposite - I often completely forget about everything else and hours pass like seconds. I recommend all her lectures wholeheartedly.

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great overview

Very interesting and nicely presented. The Teaching Company does this sort of thing really very well.

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Excellent lecture series

Informative, insightful and consistently interesting. Prof Vandiver has a gift for demystifying and popularizing classical Greek culture. She thereby makes it accessible to people who would not otherwise have benefited from a classical education.

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