106-222/322 Greek and Shakespearean Tragedy

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Subject Description:

This subject will explore the variety within the genre 'tragedy' in two of its most significant manifestations, Greek and Shakespearean. The detailed study of particular plays, mainly in tutorials, will be combined with an attempt, mainly in lectures, to indicate the relevance of historical and theoretical considerations to the interpretation of these plays. Students who complete this subject successfully will have a close familiarity with a representative range of Greek and Shakespearean tragedies and be able to bring historically and theoretically informed ways of reading to the enterprise of interpretation.

Assessment:

Prescribed Texts:

• Aeschylus trans. R Fagles, The Oresteia, Penguin.
• Euripides, Medea and Other Plays, Penguin.
• Euripides, The Bacchae and Other Plays, Penguin.
• Homer, The Iliad, OUP.
• Sophocles, Electra and Other Plays, Penguin.
• Sophocles trans R Fagles, The Three Theban Plays, Penguin.
• Shakespeare, Antony and Cleopatra, OUP.
• Shakespeare, Coriolanus, OUP.
• Shakespeare, Hamlet, OUP.
• Shakespeare, King Lear, Penguin.
• Shakespeare, Macbeth, OUP.
• Shakespeare, Othello, OUP.
• Shakespeare, The Winter's Tale, Penguin.