Greek Tragedy

By: Elizabeth Vandiver, The Great Courses

Narrated by: Elizabeth Vandiver

Greek tragedy was a dramatic form that flourished for less than a full century. And yet it remains vibrant, alive, and productive today. And the form's masterpieces help us - as perhaps they helped their original audiences - grasp a fuller sense of the terror and wonder of life. Professor Vandiver has designed these 24 rich and rewarding lectures to give you a full overview of Greek tragedy, both in its original setting and as a lasting contribution to the artistic exploration of the human condition. You'll learn to see Greek tragedy as a genre in its cultural context. What is tragedy's deeper historical background? Did it grow out of rituals honoring the god Dionysus, as is so often said? How did Aeschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides each make unique contributions to tragedy's expressive power?

You'll also uncover what scholarship can reveal about the actual performance of Greek tragedy, including its physical and ritual settings, actors and acting methods, conventions of staging and stagecraft, and even how productions were financed. And with this solid background in place, you'll explore a broad group of tragedies in close detail. In particular, you'll see how individual tragedies used traditional myths (often tales from the Trojan War), and what Aeschylus, Sophocles, or Euripides intended to accomplish by changing or adding to the basic story. You'll examine what certain tragedies imply about the world of 5th-century Athens and the importance, in turn, of the cultural background for explaining those tragedies.

PLEASE NOTE: When you purchase this title, the accompanying reference material will be available in your Library section along with the audio.

©2000 The Teaching Company, LLC (P)2000 The Great Courses

Very engaging lecturer!

Not only is the material supremely interesting for someone interested in the development of theater, but also Dr. Vandiver has a wonderful and approachable style for presentation of this material! Her confident mastery and capacity to present all sides on controversial issues in the field were greatly appreciated by this novice to the material, and she is easy to follow in speech while remaining engaging throughout. 5/5 Will listen again!

Greek Tragedy by Prof. Vandiver

Phenomenal series of lectures on all aspects of Greek Tragedy, a literary form that Professor Vandiver explains, with many examples and references to 5th century BC Greek, later Roman and succeeding literary forms, has had a profound impact on world literature over two and a half millennia. Professor Vandiver’s presentation of the material is comprehensive and engaging, and her enthusiasm for the art form is evident in every word she speaks. Must-listen lecture series for all actors, playwrights, theater-goers and anyone else who loves a good story. John Enrico Douglas

A very interesting course

I enjoy the Great Courses series. This is a good for literature and history all in one package. I learned a lot. Thank you Great Courses!!!

Excellent course

It is comprehensive, knowledgeable, eloquent and full of smart ideas. I enjoyed it a lot.

Another Winner from Professor Vandiver - Well Done

Would you recommend this audiobook to a friend? If so, why?

Everytime I purchase a course from Professor Vandiver I end up very satisfied with my investment. Her courses on the Aeneid, the Oddyssey, and the Illiad were great. This one joined that group. I originally had no desire to check out her course "Classical Mythology" but I may purchase it as much because she is teaching it as the topic.

Pluses:
• The professor was easy to listen to (almost every sentence was easy to understand and she made her points fast)
• Great information on the origins of Greek tragedy, speculation on staging considerations, historical context in which the plays were performed, mythology background on which the plays’ plots were based, and the summary and critical analysis of the plots

Very minor minuses (and the positives definitely outweighed these):
• At times the professor spoke too fast and almost seemed to rush through some lectures, especially when providing background mythology information which made it hard to follow along with the stories
• While it was understandable that the professor could not cover every play in the time allotted, for completeness sake if she at least gave a quick plot summary of the nine Euripides plays she hadn’t discussed it would’ve exceeded expectations
• Instead of discussing all of Aeschylus’ works, then Sophocles, and then Euripides, there was some bouncing back and forth between the three tragedians’ works (mainly so as to point out differences and similarities between two plays by two different tragedians that concentrated on the same mythological source material but this made it a little difficult to keep track of how many plays have been covered for each tragedian)

I would recommend this course to anyone interested in theater, classical literature, or classical mythology.

Fabulous!

Greek Tragedy is interesting, dynamic, informative and enjoyable. I wish I had 12 more hours on the subject. Very well presented and the professor couldn’t be more knowledgeable. Highly recommended!

Phenomenal course on seminal texts

All of Prof. Vandiver's courses are wonderful, and this is no exception. As always, she does a great job of laying out the cultural and historical background, and then diving in to the 3 great tragedians of the era and some of their best plays. I learned a lot I never knew about the development of theater in ancient Athens, and the limits of what we can know (and not know) about what was actually happening in the theater. I especially enjoyed the latter and hearing what the current thinking is on what some of the staging would have been like.

It would be helpful to have some familiarity with ancient Greece and/or Greek tragedy before listening. But I haven't read any of the plays for 40 years (some I have never read) and that didn't impair my understanding or enjoyment. It did inspire me to go back and read some of them now!

Phenomenal

This is so, so, so good. I recommend all of Vandiver's lecture series, since she is so entertaining, informative, and well structured. This is no different. I now appreciate Greek Tragedy a lot more and feel like I "get" more out of reading them. As always, the Greeks seemingly perfected certain types of thinking in a way that remains unmatched to this day, and they are always worth reading.

Amazing Course

Was there a moment in the book that particularly moved you?

I loved the critical approach Professor Vandiver takes examining the evidence and what we thought we knew about Greek tragedies.

Wonderful

I’d always thought ancient Greek drama would be wooden, stale, uninteresting. Oh no! This set of lectures is a marvelous introduction. It exceeded my expectations and then some!