This is a unique introduction to Greek tragedy that explores the plays as dramatic artifacts intended for performance and pays special attention to construction, design, staging, and musical composition.Written by a scholar who combines his academic understanding of Greek tragedy with his singular theatrical experience of producing these ancient dramas for the modern stage
The peaceful life of a village in Wiltshire is suddenly shattered by a disaster which strikes without reason or explanation, leaving behind it a trail of misery and horror. A yawning, bottomless crack spreads through the earth, out of which creeps a fog that resembles no other. Whatever it is, it must be controlled; for wherever it goes it leaves behind a trail of disaster as hideous as the tragedy that marked its entry into the world. The fog, quite simple, drives people insane.
Probably the most explosive book of the year will be Tom Bower's Broken Vows - Tony Blair and the Tragedy of Power. Bower has a reputation for unearthing unwelcome truths.
To Samuel Taylor Coleridge, tragedy was not solely a literary mode, but a philosophy to interpret the history that unfolded around him. Tragic Coleridge explores the tragic vision of existence that Coleridge derived from Classical drama, Shakespeare, Milton and contemporary German thought. Coleridge viewed the hardships of the Romantic period, like the catastrophes of Greek tragedy, as stages in a process of humanity's overall purification.
