Reviews

The Lost Plays of Greek Tragedy, Volume 1: Neglected Authors by Matthew Wright

suzannecl's review

challenging informative reflective slow-paced

5.0

 Such a useful and important book. Wright discusses the lives and works of all the Greek tragedians we know of *except* for Aeschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides. This is game-changing for our understanding of the genre as a whole, and presents a challenge to a lot of our taken-for-granted assumptions (such as the quality of the lost plays, the structure of the dramatic festival, the specifically Athenian nature of tragedy, the prominence of mythical rather than historical or contemporary subject matter, and intertextual relationships between poets and their works). Wright provides translations of all the surviving fragments and a list of plays sharing the same title/subject matter, as well as chronologies and guides for further reading. An invaluable resource for anyone studying Greek tragedy, and accessible for students at all levels.