NB Underlined items provide clickable links to items available online via webcat.

GENERAL BACKGROUND AND CRITICISM

 

Gorgias, Encomium of Helen, in The Greek Sophists trans. J. Dillon and T. Gergel (Penguin 2003)
Aristotle, Poetics in Classical Literary Criticism trans. P. Murray and T. S.Dorsch (Penguin 2000)

Belfiore, E. Tragic Pleasures: Aristotle on Plot and Emotion (Princeton 1992)
Belfiore, E. Murder among Friends: Violations of Philia in Greek Tragedy (Oxford 2000)
des Bouvrie, S. Women in Greek Tragedy (Oxford 1990)
Boedeker, D. & Raaflaub, K. (eds.) Democracy, Empire and the Arts in Fifth-century Athens (Harvard 1998)
Csapo, E. & Slater, W. (eds.) The Context of Ancient Drama (Michigan 1994)
Easterling, P. E. 'Anachronism in Greek Tragedy', JHS 105 (l985) 1–10
Easterling, P. E. 'Constructing Character in Greek Tragedy', in C. Pelling (ed.) Characterization and Individuality in Greek Literature (Oxford 1990) 83–99
Easterling, P. E. & Muir, J. V. (eds.) Greek Religion and Society (Cambridge 1985)
Easterling, P. E. (ed.) The Cambridge Companion to Greek Tragedy (Cambridge 1997)
Easterling, P. E. and Hall, E. (eds.) Greek and Roman Actors: Aspects of an ancient profession (Cambridge 2002)
Foley, H., Female Acts in Greek Tragedy (Princeton 2001)
Goff, B. (ed.) History, Tragedy, Theory: Dialogues on Athenian Drama (Austin, TX 1995)
Goldhill, S. Reading Greek Tragedy (Cambridge 1986)
Goldhill, S. 'The Great Dionysia and civic ideology', JHS 107 (1987) 58–76, reprinted in Winkler and Zeitlin (below)
Goldhill, S. 'Representing democracy: women at the Great Dionysia', in R. Osborne and S. Hornblower (eds.) Ritual, Finance, Politics (Oxford 1994) 347–69
Gould, J. 'Tragedy in Performance', in The Cambridge History of Classical Literature vol.1 (Cambridge 1985) 263–80
Goward, B. Telling Tragedy: Narrative Techniques in Aeschylus, Sophocles and Euripides (London 1999)
Green, J. R. Theatre in Ancient Greek Society (London 1994)
Green, J. R. & Handley, E. (eds.) Images of the Greek Theatre (London 1995)
Gregory, J. (ed.) A Companion to Greek Tragedy (Oxford 2005)
Griffin, J. 'The social function of Attic Tragedy', CQ 48 no.1 (1998) 39–61
Hall, E. Inventing the Barbarian: Greek Self-Definition through Tragedy (Oxford 1989)
Hall, E. 'Is there a Polis in Aristotle's Poetics?', in M. Silk (ed.) Tragedy and the Tragic (below) 295–309
Hall, E. Greek Tragedy: Suffering Under the Sun (Oxford 2010): a good general introduction
Herington, J. Poetry into Drama: Early Tragedy and the Greek Poetic Tradition (Berkeley 1985)
Jones, J. On Aristotle and Greek Tragedy (London 1962)
Kowalzig, B. 'The Aetiology of Empire? Hero-Cult and Athenian Tragedy', in Greek Drama III: Essays in Honour of Kevin Lee (BICS Supplement 87, 2006) 79–98
Lesky, A. Greek Tragic Poetry (London 1983)
Loraux, N. The Invention of Athens: The Funeral Oration in the Classical City (Cambridge, MA 1986)
Loraux, N. Tragic Ways of Killing a Woman (Harvard 1987)
McAuslan, I. & Walcot, P. (eds.) Greek Tragedy (Oxford 1993)
McClure, L. Spoken Like a Woman: Speech and Gender in Greek Tragedy (Princeton 1999)
Meier, C. The Political Art of Greek Tragedy (Cambridge 1993)
Nussbaum, M. C. The Fragility of Goodness: Luck and Ethics in Greek Tragedy and Philosophy (Cambridge 1986)
Padel, R. In and Out of the Mind: Greek Images of the Tragic Self (Princeton 1992)
Padel, R. Whom Gods Destroy: Elements of Greek and Tragic Madness (Princeton 1995)
Pelling, C. (ed.) Greek Tragedy and the Historian (Oxford 1997)
Pickard-Cambridge, A. W. Dithyramb, Tragedy, and Comedy, 2nd revised edition (Oxford 1962)
Pickard-Cambridge, A. W. The Dramatic Festivals of Athens, 2nd edition revised with addenda by Gould and Lewis (Oxford 1988)
Rehm, R. Greek Tragic Theatre (London 1992)
Rhodes, P. J. 'Nothing to Do With Democracy: Athenian Drama and the polis', JHS 123 (2003) 104–19
Segal, E. (ed.) Oxford Readings in Greek Tragedy (Oxford 1983)
Silk, M. (ed.) Tragedy and the Tragic: Greek Theatre and Beyond (Oxford 1996)
Sommerstein, A. Greek Drama and Dramatists (London 2002)
Sommerstein, A. (et al.) (eds.) Tragedy, Comedy and the Polis (Bari 1993)
Sourvinou-Inwood, C. Tragedy and Athenian Religion (Lanham 2003)
Taplin, O. P. Greek Tragedy in Action (London 1978)
Vernant, J.-P. and Vidal-Naquet, P. Myth and Tragedy in Ancient Greece, trans. J. Lloyd (New York 1988)
Vickers, B. Towards Greek Tragedy (London l974)
Whitmarsh, T. 'Atheistic Aesthetics: The Sisyphus Fragment, Poetics, and the Creativity of Drama', Proceedings of the Cambridge Philological Society 60 (2014) 109–26
Wiles, D. Tragedy in Athens: Performance Space and Theatrical Meaning (Cambridge 1997)
Wiles, D. Greek Theatre Performance: an Introduction (Cambridge 2000)
Williams, B. Shame and Necessity (California 1993)
Wilson, P. J. The Athenian Institution of the Khoregia (Cambridge 2000)
Wilson, P. J. (ed.) The Greek Theatre and Festivals: Documentary Studies (Oxford 2007)
Winkler, J. and Zeitlin, F. (eds.) Nothing to Do with Dionysus? (Princeton 1990)
Zeitlin, F. I. ‘Thebes: Theater of Self and Society in Athenian Drama’, in Nothing to do with Dionysos?
Zimmermann, B. Greek Tragedy: an Introduction (Baltimore 1991)

 

The Chorus and Choral Traditions

Calame, C. 'Performative Aspects of the Choral Voice in Greek Tragedy: Civic Identity in Performance', in S. Goldhill & R. Osborne (eds.) Performance Culture and Athenian Democracy (Cambridge 1998)
Easterling, P. E. 'Form and Performance', in P. E. Easterling (ed.) The Cambridge Companion to Greek Tragedy (Cambridge 1997) 151–77
Foley, H. 'Choral Identity in Greek Tragedy', CPhil 98 (2003) 1–30
Goldhill, S. 'Collectivity and Otherness – The Authority of the Tragic Chorus', in M. Silk (ed.) Tragedy and the Tragic
Gould, J. 'Tragedy and Collective Experience', in M. Silk (ed.) Tragedy and the Tragic (Oxford 1996)
Murnaghan, S. 'Choroi achoroi: the Athenian politics of tragic choral identity', in D. M. Carter (ed.) Why Athens? A Reappraisal of Tragic Politics (Oxford 2011), 245–67
Pickard-Cambridge, A. W. Dithyramb, Tragedy, and Comedy, 2nd ed., rev. by T. B. L. Webster (Oxford 1962)

 

AESCHYLUS
1. General

Conacher, D.J. Aeschylus, the Earlier Plays and Related Studies (Toronto 1996)
Easterling, P. 'Presentation of Character in Aeschylus', Greece and Rome 20 (1973) 3–19, reprinted in McAuslan, I. and Walcot, P. (eds.) Greek Tragedy (Oxford 1993)
Griffith, M. 'The King and Eye: The Rule of the Father in Greek Tragedy', in M. Lloyd (ed.) Oxford Readings in Classical Studies: Aeschylus (Oxford 2006) 93–140
Herington, J. Aeschylus (Yale 1986)
Lesky, A. 'Decision and Responsibility in the Tragedy of Aeschylus’, JHS 86 (1966) 78–85
Lloyd, M. OxfordReadings in Classical Studies: Aeschylus (Oxford 2006)
McCall, M. (ed.) Aeschylus : a collection of critical essays (Prentice Hall 1972)
Meier, C. The Political Art of Greek Tragedy (Cambridge 1993)
Podlecki, A. J. The Political background of Aeschylean tragedy (Michigan 1966)
Rosenmeyer, T. G. The Art of Aeschylus (California 1982)
Taplin, O. P. The Stagecraft of Aeschylus (Oxford 1977)
Winnington-Ingram, R.P. Studies in Aeschylus (Cambridge 1983)

 

2. The Oresteia

Conacher, D.J. Aeschylus: Oresteia: a Literary Commentary (Toronto 1987)
Denniston, D. & Page, D. Aeschylus: Agamemnon (Oxford 1957)
Dover, K. J. 'Some Neglected Aspects of Agamemnon's Dilemma', JHS 93 (1973) 58–69
Easterling, P. E. 'Theatrical Furies: Thoughts on Eumenides', in Revermann and Wilson (eds.) Performance, Iconography, Reception (Oxford 2008) 219–36
Fraenkel, E. Aeschylus: Agamemnon (3 vols., Oxford 1950)
Frontisi-Ducroux, F. 'The Invention of the Erinyes', in Kraus et al. (eds.) Visualizing the Tragic (Oxford 2007) 165–76
Garvie, A. Aeschylus: Choephoroi (Oxford 1986)
Goldhill, S. Aeschylus: the Oresteia(Cambridge 1992)
Goldhill, S. 'Civic ideology and the problem of difference: the politics of Aeschylean tragedy, once again', JHS 120 (2000) 34–56
Griffith, M. 'Brilliant Dynasts: Power and Politics in the Oresteia' CA 14.1 (1995) 62–129 [Multiple Copies in Box in Office]
Kennedy, R. F. 'Justice, Geography, and Empire in Aeschylus' Eumenides' CA 25.1 (2006) 35–72 [Copy in Box in Office]
LLoyd-Jones, H. 'The Guilt of Agamemnon', CQ 12 (1962) 187–99, reprinted in Oxford Readings in Greek Tragedy, 57–72
Macleod, C. ‘Politics and the Oresteia’, JHS 102 (1982) 124–44, reprinted in Collected Essays (Oxford 1983) 20–40
Peradotto, J. 'The Omen of the Eagles and the ethos of Agamemnon', Phoenix 23 (1969) 237–63
Peradotto, J. 'Some Patterns of Nature Imagery in the Oresteia', AJP 85 (1964) 378–93
Podlecki, A. Aeschylus: Eumenides (Aris and Phillips 1987)
Seaford, R. 'Historicizing Tragic Ambivalence: The Vote of Athena', in Goff (ed.) History, Tragedy, Theory, 202–21 [Photocopy in Box in Office]
Sommerstein, A. Aescyhlus: Eumenides(Cambridge 1989)
Wilson, P. and Taplin, O. 'The "aetiology" of tragedy in the Oresteia', PCPS 39 (1993) 169–80
Winnington-Ingram, R. P. ‘Clytaemnestra and the vote of Athena’, JHS 68 (1948) 130–47, reprinted in Segal (ed.), Oxford Readings in Greek Tragedy, and as pp. 101–31 in his Studies in Aeschylus.
Zeitlin, F. ‘The Dynamics of Misogyny: myth and myth-making in the Oresteia’, Arethusa 11 (1978) 149–84; also in her collected volume, Playing the Other (Chicago 1996)

 

SOPHOCLES

Ormand, K. A Companion to Sophocles (Wiley-Blackwell, 2012) available online. A range of useful chapters.

Ahl, F. Sophocles' Oedipus (Cornell 1991)
Apfel, L. J. The Advent of Pluralism: Diversity and Conflict in the Age of Sophocles (Oxford 2011) chs. 6–8
Bers, V. ‘The Perjured Chorus in Sophocles’ Philoctetes’, Hermes 109 (1981) 500–4
Blundell, M. W. ‘The Phusis of Neoptolemus in Sophocles’ Philoctetes’, Greece and Rome 35 (1988) 137–48
Blundell, M. W. Helping friends and harming enemies : a study in Sophocles and Greek ethics (Cambridge 1989)
Bowie, A. M. ‘Tragic filters for history: Euripides’ Supplices and Sophocles’ Philoctetes’, in C. Pelling (ed), Greek Tragedy and the Historian (Oxford) 39–62
Budelmann, F. The Language of Sophocles (Cambridge 2000)
Burnett, A. P. Revenge in Attic and Later Tragedy (California 1998): good chapter on Electra [Photocopy in Box in Office]
Buxton, R. Sophocles (Greece and Rome New Surveys in the Classics 16, 2nd ed. Oxford 1995)
Dodds, E. R. 'On misunderstanding the Oedipus Rex', Greece and Rome 13 (1966), reprinted in The Ancient Concept of Progress (Oxford 1973) and in Oxford Readings in Greek Tragedy
Easterling, P. E. 'Character in Sophocles', Greece and Rome 24.2 (1977) 121–9, reprinted in Oxford Readings
Easterling, P. E. 'The Tragic Homer', BICS 31 (1984) 1–8
Falkner, T. ‘Containing tragedy: rhetoric and self-representation in Sophocles’ Philoctetes’, CA 17 (1998) 25–58
Foley, H. 'Tragedy and Democratic Ideology: The Case of Sophocles' Antigone' in Goff (ed.) History, Tragedy, Theory, ch. 5
Foley, H. 'Antigone as moral agent', in Tragedy and the Tragic, 49–73
Garvie, A. Sophocles' Ajax, ed. with introduction and notes (Aris & Phillips 1998)
Gill, C. ‘Bow, Oracle, and Epiphany in Sophocles’ Philoctetes’, Greece and Rome 27 (1980) 137–46
Gill, C. 'Ajax' Womanized Speech', in Personality in Greek Epic, Tragedy, and Philosophy: The Self in Dialogue (Oxford 1996) 204–16
Goldhill, S. ‘Tragic Emotions: The Pettiness of Envy and the Politics of Pitilessness’, in Konstan and Rutter (eds.), Envy, Spite and Jealousy (Edinburgh 2003) 165–80
Griffin, J. (ed.) Sophocles Revisited (Oxford 1999)
Griffith, M. Sophocles' Antigone, ed. with introduction and notes (Cambridge 1999)
Heaney, S. The Cure at Troy: A Version of Sophocles’ Philoctetes (New York 1991)
Henrichs, A. 'The tomb of Aias and the prospect of hero cult in Sophokles', CA 12 (1993) 165–80
Hesk, J. Deception and Democracy in Classical Athens (Cambridge 2000) 188–201, on Philoctetes
Hesk, J. Sophocles: Ajax (Duckworth Companions to Greek and Roman Tragedy, London 2003)
Kitzinger, R. 'Why Mourning Becomes Elektra', CA 10 (1991) 298–327 [TWO Photocopies in Box in Office]
Knox, B. 'The Ajax of Sophocles', HSCP 65 (1961) 1–37, reprinted in Knox, B. Word and Action: Essays on the Ancient Theater (Baltimore 1979)
Knox, B. Oedipus at Thebes (Yale 1957)
Knox, B. The Heroic Temper (Berkeley 1966)
Konstan, D. Pity Transformed (London 2001)
Jebb, R. C. Sophocles: Ajax (reprinted with new introduction by P. Wilson, Bristol 2004)
Minadeo, R. The Thematic Sophocles (Amsterdam 1994)
Nussbaum, M. ‘Consequences and Character in Sophocles’ Philoctetes’, Philosophy and Literature 1 (1976–7) 25–53
Ormand, K. Exchange and the Maiden: Marriage in Sophoclean Tragedy (Austin, TX 1999)
Parker, R. 'Through a glass darkly: Sophocles and the divine', in Griffin (ed.)
Reinhardt, K. Sophocles, trans. H & D Harvey (Blackwell 1979); the chapter on Ajax reprinted in Oxford Readings
Ringer, M. Electra and the Empty Urn: Metatheater and Role Playing in Sophocles (Chapel Hill 1998)
Roberts, D. H. ‘Sophoclean Endings: Another Story’, Arethusa 21 (1988) 177–96
Roisman, H. M. Sophocles: Philoctetes ((Duckworth Companions to Greek and Roman Tragedy, London 2005)
Rose, P. W. ‘Sophocles’ Philoctetes and the Teaching of the Sophists,” Harvard Studies in Classical Philology 80 (1976) 49–105: reworked in
Rose, P. W. Sons of the Gods, Children of Earth: Ideology and Literary Form in Ancient Greece (Ithaca, NY 1992) ch. 5, ‘Sophocles’ Philoktetes and the Teachings of the Sophists: A Counteroffensive’
Rose, P. W. 'Historicizing Sophocles' Ajax', in B. Goff (ed.) History, Tragedy, Theory: Dialogues on Athenian Drama (Austin, TX 1995) 59–90
Scodel, R. 'Aetiology, Autochthony, and Athenian Identity in Ajax and Oedipus Coloneus', in Greek Drama III: Essays in Honour of Kevin Lee (BICS Supplement 87, 2006) 79–98
Segal, C. 'The Electra of Sophocles', TAPA 97 (1966) 473–545
Segal, C. Tragedy and Civilisation (Cambridge, MA 1981)
Segal, C. Oedipus Tyrannus: Tragic Heroism and the Limits of Knowledge (2nd ed. Oxford 2001)
Segal, C. Sophocles' Tragic World: Divinity, Nature, Society (Cambridge, MA 1995)
Sourvinou-Inwood, C. 'Assumptions and the Creation of Meaning: Reading Sophocles' Antigone', JHS 109 (1989) 134–48
Steiner, G. Antigones (Oxford 1984)
Vernant, J.-P. 'Ambiguity and reversal: on the enigmatic structure of the Oedipus Rex', in Vernant and P. Vidal-Naquet (eds.) Myth and Tragedy in Ancient Greece; reprinted in Oxford Readings
Wilkins, J. Sophocles, Antigone & Oedipus the King, A Companion to the Penguin translation of Robert Fagles (Bristol 1987)
Winnington-Ingram R. P. Sophocles: An Interpretation (Cambridge 1980)
Wright, M. 'The Joy of Sophocles' Electra', G&R 52.2 (2005) 172–94

 

EURIPIDES

Allan, W. Euripides: Medea(London 2002)
Barlow, S. The Imagery of Euripides (London 1971)
Boedecker, D. 'Euripides' Medea and the vanity of logoi', CPhil 86 (1991) 95–112
Bond, G. 'Euripides' parody of Aeschylus', Hermathena 118 (1974) 1–14
Bongie, E. B. 'Heroic elements in the Medea of Euripides', TAPA 107 (1977) 27–56
Burian, P. (ed.) Directions in Euripidean Criticism (Duke University Press 1985)
Burnett, A. P. Catastrophe Survived (Oxford 1971)
Clauss, J. J. Medea: Essays on Medea in Myth, Literature, Philosophy (Princeton 1997)
Conacher, D. Euripidean Drama (Toronto 1967)
Conacher, D. Euripides and the Sophists (London 1998)
Croally, N. Euripidean Polemic: The Trojan Women and the Function of Tragedy (Cambridge 1994)
Cropp, M. & Lee, K. (eds.) Euripides and Tragic Theatre in the Late Fifth Century (Illinois Classical Studies vol. 24/25: 1999-2000)
Dodds, E. R. 'Euripides the Irrationalist', CR 43 (1929) 97–104, reprinted in The Ancient Concept of Progress (Oxford 1973)
Dué, C. The Captive Women’s Lament in Greek Tragedy (Austin, TX 2006)
Dunn, F. Tragedy's End: Closure and Innovation in Euripidean Drama (Oxford 1996)
Easterling, P. E. 'The infanticide in Euripides’ Medea,' YCS 25 (1977) 177–91
Easterling, P. E. 'Women in tragic space', BICS 34 (1987) 15–26
Foley, H. 'Medea’s divided self', CA 8 (1989) 61–85
Friedrich, R. 'Medea apolis: on Euripides' dramatization of the crisis of the polis', in A. Sommerstein (et. al.) (eds.) Tragedy, Comedy, and the Polis, 219–39
Goff, B. The Noose of Words: Readings of Desire, Violence and Language in Euripides, Hippolytus(Cambridge 1990)
Goff, B. 'The Sign of the Fall: The Scars of Orestes and Odysseus', CA 10 (1991) 259–67
Goff, B. 'Try to Make it Real Compared to What? Euripides' Electra and the Play of Genre', in Cropp and Lee (eds.) (2000), 93–105
Griffiths, E. Medea (London 2006)
Knox, B. 'The Medea of Euripides', Yale Classical Studies 25 (1977) 193–225, reprinted in Oxford Readings
Kovacs, D. The Heroic Muse: Studies in the Hippolytus and Hecuba of Euripides (Baltimore 1987)
Lloyd, M. 'Realism and Character in Euripides' Electra', Phoenix 40 (1986) 1–19
Lloyd, M. The Agon in Euripides (Oxford 1992)
Mastronarde, D. (ed.) Euripides: Medea (Cambridge 2002)
McDermott, E. Euripides' Medea: The Incarnation of Disorder (Pennsylvania 1989)
Mossman, J. (ed.) Oxford Readings in Euripides (Oxford 2003)
Musurillo, H. 'Euripides' Medea: A Reconsideration', AJP 87 (1966) 52–74
Newton, R. M. 'Ino in Euripides' Medea', AJP 106 (1985) 496–502
Poole, A. 'Total disaster: Euripides' Trojan Women', Arion 3 (1976) 257–87
Powell, A. (ed.) Euripides, Women and Sexuality (London 1990)
Pucci, P. The Violence of Pity in Euripides' Medea (1980)
Rabinowitz, N. Sorkin Anxiety Veiled: Euripides and the Traffic in Women (Ithaca, NY 1993)
Rickert, G. 'Akrasia in Euripides' Medea', HSCP 91 (1987) 91–117
Segal, C. Dionysiac Poetics and Euripides' Bacchae (Princeton 1982)
Segal, E. (ed.) Euripides, A Collection of Critical Essays (Prentice Hall 1968)
Sourvinou-Inwood, C. 'Tragedy and Religion' in C. Pelling (ed.) Greek Tragedy and the Historian (Oxford 1997)
Torrance, I. 'Writing and self-conscious mythopoiesis in Euripides', The Cambridge Classical Journal 56 (2010) 213–51
Torrance, I. Metapoetry in Euripides (Oxford 2013)
Whitmarsh, T. 'Atheistic Aesthetics: The Sisyphus Fragment, Poetics, and the Creativity of Drama', Proceedings of the Cambridge Philological Society 60 (2014) 109–26: excellent recent discussion of the interaction between sophistic thought and tragedy in the later fifth century
Winnington-Ingram, R. P. Euripides and Dionysus: An Interpretation of the Bacchae (Cambridge 1948)
Zeitlin, F. 'The Argive Festival of Hera and Euripides' Electra', TAPA 101 (1970) 645–69