Greek Tragic Women on Shakespearean Stages

Abstract

Greek Tragic Women on Shakespearean Stages argues that ancient Greek plays exerted a powerful and uncharted influence on early modern England’s dramatic landscape. Drawing on original research to challenge longstanding assumptions about Greek texts’ invisibility, the book shows not only that the plays were more prominent than we have believed, but that early modern readers and audiences responded powerfully to specific plays and themes. The Greek plays most popular in the period were not male-centered dramas such as Sophocles’ Oedipus, but tragedies by Euripides that focused on raging bereaved mothers and sacrificial virgin daughters, especially Hecuba and Iphigenia. Because tragedy was firmly linked with its Greek origin in the period’s writings, these iconic female figures acquired a privileged status as synecdoches for the tragic theater and its ability to conjure sympathetic emotions in audiences. When Hamlet reflects on the moving power of tragic performance, he turns to the most prominent of these figures: “What’s Hecuba to him, or he to Hecuba/ That he should weep for her?” Through readings of plays by Shakespeare and his contemporary dramatists, this book argues that newly visible Greek plays, identified with the origins of theatrical performance and represented by passionate female figures, challenged early modern writers to reimagine the affective possibilities of tragedy, comedy, and the emerging genre of tragicomedy.

Sacrificio, vendetta, giustizia: Carlo I e il regicidio nella letteratura rivoluzionaria inglese negli anni delle guerre civili

“…Mentre nella scena successiva del medesimo atto si afferma l'indicibilità del crimine dell'omicidio, tale da andare oltre ogni possibilità di espiazione 33 . Il richiamo alla tradizione sacrificale greca sembra legarsi ad una seconda questione: si può stabilire una relazione tra il concetto di sacrificio 29 Gliksohn 1985;Demers 2005, 78-98;Kenward 2016;Pollard 2017;Miola 2020. 30 «And all remarkeable sinnes punish with marke, / one mischiefe still another doth beget, / adultery murder: I am lost, undone».…”

Exit Pursued by Horace: Bears, Shakespeare, and the Classical Tradition

“…Sanravius' Oresteia, that is, took the form of a tragicomedy, with mad rage at its pivot. In its form, then, it looks a great deal like 53 Schleiner (1990); Silk (2004); on Shakespeare and Euripides, see Pollard (2017). See, too, Showerman (2011), for whom Greek learning and alternative Shakespearian authorship theories may dovetail.…”

Chapter 3. Keywords that characterise Shakespeare’s (anti)heroes and villains

“…We have focussed on Tamora's use of "sweet", in order to highlight her use of speech to flatter and manipulate. Such a depiction makes her an early example of a characteristically feminine villainy (Tassi 2011;Pollard 2017). Lady Macbeth is as manipulative as Tamora, but her chosen methods involve "unsex[ing] herself" (Charney, 2012: 86) and emasculating Macbeth with the aid of keywords such as "would" and "without".…”