Overview

New essays on ancient Greek classics from Ireland's greatest living dramatists and academics That so many Irish playwrights should return to the Greek classics can not really be a surprise. Drama in Ireland is still a means of exploring the issues of family and state; of gender, class and race; of the oppressors and the oppressed. It is political in the broad sense in which the Greeks understood the word, involving everyone - immediate but concentrated through parallel and parable. This collection of provocative essays reveals how some of the great Irish poets and dramatists, of the past and present, have drawn on Greek myths and used these stories, which have travelled across three thousand years, to bring new insights on the world in which we now live. Including essays from, amongst others, Athol Fugard, Seamus Heaney and Tom Paulin Amid Our Troubles looks at the work of such writers as Marina Carr, Brian Friel, Brendan Kennelly, Frank McGuinness and W. B. Yeats.

Full Product Details

9780413771421

Table of Contents

Reviews

This book offers 15 essays (or, to be exact, 12 essays, a bibliography, an interview and some production notes) on the relationship between Greek tragedy and Irish writing. Two chapters by the editors survey the broader history; the later essays tackle specific plays. This book has much to say on what is perhaps a surprising aspect of Irish writing. We may not generally think of the Irish as classicists, but, as Declan Kiberd points out in his introduction, Irish writers have been drawing on the ancient world for inspiration for quite some time. From the Irish bards who first translated the Aeneid in the 12th century to Synge and Joyce, Yeats and Oscar Wilde and modern writers such as Tom Paulin and Seamus Heaney, the Irish found in Greek writing a source of subversive knowledge both recognized by and prone to undermine their British rulers - and a literary tradition which shared their own beliefs in the importance of a social and political role for theatre. Furthermore, this is an excellent introduction to Greek tragedy more generally. The various essays manage to survey all of the 35 or so extant plays; specific essays examine Phaedra, Antigone in Africa, Seamus Heaney on the Oresteia, Medea and attitudes to women in the plays. Also of interest are two chapters written by Tom Paulin and Seamus Heaney. These high-profile contributors are both translators of Greek tragedy - Tom Paulin's The Riot Act is a translation of Antigone, whilst Seamus Heaney wrote a translation of Philoctetes entitled The Cure at Troy. Alas, their discussions are a little brief - Heaney merely reproduces a letter he wrote to an American production giving advice on staging The Cure at Troy - but they do offer the pleasure of looking over the shoulder of practising writers. This is not a book without biases. The strong Irish nationalism perhaps breeds a lack of balance in several contributors' readings of Antigone (Creon, representative of the state, receives short shrift). Furthermore, the Romans take up a rather undeserved place as whipping boys and adversaries, along with their would-be descendants, the imperialist British. Still, this book is more often informative than preachy; and it is hard to think of any reading matter more appropriate for students studying tragedy. (Kirkus UK)

Author Information

J. Michael Walton has published and edited seven books on classical theatre history and has nine translations of Euripides plays in print, many on the Methuen Drama list. He is Emeritus Professor of Drama at the University of Hull where he taught from 1965 to 2002. While there he directed numerous plays and taught courses in Classical Theatre, Masks and Puppets, Russian Theatre, American Theatre, Nineteenth and Twentieth Century Theatre, Directing and Acting. MARIANNE MCDONALD is Professor of Theatre and Classics at the University of California, San Diego, and a member of the Royal Irish Academy. She was a Fulbright professor in 1999 and in addition to her post at UCSD, is adjunct professor at Trinity College Dublin and a fellow at the National University of Ireland. With over 140 publications, she is the author of Terms for Happiness in Euripides, Euripides in Cinema, Ancient Sun/Modern Light, and Star Myths.

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