eBook Reading Greek Tragedy ePub

The two reviews here are silly and do not address the book directly. Goldhill is ambitious. He is trying to explain the nature of Greek tragedy and the circumstances of its development. He does this by discussing, in turn, particular works and particular themes. For instance, he discusses works that can only be understood in terms of the interworkings of the Greek polis and then describes the nature of the polis and its imhabitants. It is an impressive and illuminating product; those who are serious about understanding Greek tragedy should take the time to work though it.

From my class on Greek Drama:

Goldhill's Reading Greek Tragedy seems immediately implausible. The very premise of the book, attempting to explain the meaning and interpretation of Greek tragedy to a modern audience that knows neither Greece nor Greek in a 300-page book, is preposterous. To compound matters, the book is not about reading Greek tragedy, a slightly ridiculous concept considering that all of Greek tragedy was meant to be performed, not read. Even Goldhill ultimately concedes that "Greek tragedy is not reducible to a simple message." He might as well write a book entitled Reading Linear A.
Goldhill's book is not entirely without merit, indeed it has some very in depth analysis of several plays, and it raises many very thought-provoking questions about the meaning and nature of Greek tragedy. However, his minimal discussion of Athenian culture and the stage performance of Greek drama, both of which are inseparable from the individual plays as a whole, weakens the power of his arguments. Rather than addressing these issues directly, he argues through the example of specific plays that he feels highlight each issue; unfortunately, this has the effect of turning each general topic into an in depth analysis of a single play. For instance, his discussion of performance and performability strays into a discussion of the message of the Maenad chorus in the Bacchae, and so what is arguably the most profound section of the entire book is compressed down into the last five pages. Had he spent more time exploring questions like "Can a performance ever exhaust the potentialities of a text?" and "How does the participant and spectator...draw boundaries between himself and these events?" the text might be more a thought provoking discussion of Greek tragedy and less a discussion of the Bacchae, the Orestes, and the few other individual plays that he analyzes in excruciating detail.
This is Goldhill's most major offense: his choice of plays. His choice to represent the entire body of surviving Greek tragedy with only a small subset of plays contradicts the entire premise of the book, which is to explain the entirety of Greek tragedy. While he seems to think that this small subset is entirely representative of the body as a whole, by doing this he falls into the trap of making definite judgments about the meaning, value, and representation of each play. Because, as he admits at the end, each play cannot ever be judged objectively, he puts himself in the position of making an impossible decision, and the book reflects it.
Goldhill delves too far into the plays that he chooses to address, and as a result leaves only a little time to address the deeper issues, themes, ideas, and problems of Greek Tragedy. Overall, Reading Greek Tragedy is a wealth of very fine knowledge about those plays that it does address, but it falls woefully short of actually addressing the topic of Greek tragedy as a whole. While it is a good jumping-off point to begin a further exploration of Greek tragedy, as a stand-alone book Reading Greek Tragedy it is simply inadequate.

If you are interested in the subject I would recommend How to Stage Greek Tragedy Today