Introducing Greek Tragedy

Greek tragedy always finds new readers. We, as educators, functional custodians and publicists of antiquity, must do what we can to optimize that readership, both for quantity and quality, attracting newcomers and training them in the critical appraisal and appreciation of some of the most culturally significant texts in human history. Thus the recent surge of books designed for those readers new to the experience of Greek tragedy is a welcome one. These books target various demographics: Rabinowitz 2008 and Scodel 2010 are for new readers of tragedy, while works like Goldhill 2007 and Walton 2009 aim to bring Greek tragedy to contemporary theatre practitioners. Prior to Gregory 2005 and Storey and Allan 2005, there were few books in this category. Ley 1991 (revised 2006) is short, while McLeish 2003 spends much time summarizing each of the plays and supporting material (glossary, bibliography) is limited. Each of these volumes has its strengths. The mandate for this review is a broad one: to assess collectively and reflect upon the recent spate of books billed as introductions to Greek tragedy. The volumes here under specific review are for different niches in academic pedagogy, but all include the word “introduction” somewhere on the jacket.

Considering the range of audience competencies one can expect to find in academia, from first-year undergraduates with little experience of theatre or literature to graduate students (or beyond) in cognate fields, such as drama or comparative literature programs, the idea of an “introduction” becomes a moving target. This is to say nothing of those potential readers outside the academy, in whom we must believe if we are going to make claims of relevancy in the world today. Many of the variables of defining an introduction have been examined in the debate on companionship: the phenomenon of self-identified “companions” to authors, genres, historical periods, et cetera, usually professing a mandate of accessibility. Two of my review volumes self-identify as companions, and in fact are most deserving of the term, given that the Duckworth volumes are each intended to be read in tandem with their play. Josiah Ober has recently questioned the value of this trend (cautioning without condemning), noting that the definition of “Companion” is sorely tested when applied to such a range of works.

How then to define an introduction and judge its value? I have mainly limited myself to concerns of pedagogy within the (Canadian) university. This may prove unfair to some of the works on my list, but these are the new readers we know best, the ones we can shape and train. How useful are these volumes to students, both during the run of a University course and afterwards? To which students are they useful? The introductory volume must be accessible, thorough, and well rounded, with as many approaches represented as possible, alongside supporting paratext (glossaries, chronologies, lists of suggested reading). One metric I found telling was the appropriateness of each volume in the bibliography for a student paper. If I require a given number of sources in a student’s bibliography, would I count Garvie’s volume on Aeschylus toward that quota? Probably not, given its brevity, though Garvie would swiftly lead the student to several other useful sources. I have a similar conversation with classes about online sources: Wikipedia is not a suitable bibliographic source, but it may lead to proper peer-reviewed sources and it takes only a short time to determine this. Wikipedia is a research tool, not a source. We are not going to keep our students from these resources, and part of our job must be to train the students to recognize their...