Böcker av Edith Hall

`Wonderful and timely ... Hugely recommended' STEPHEN FRYWhat do you and an ancient philosopher have in common? Aristotle's way is not to apply rules - it's about engaging with the texture of existence, and striding purposefully towards a life well lived.

Very Short Introductions: Brilliant, Sharp, Inspiring This Very Short Introduction introduces the life, work, and influence of one of the greatest dramatists of all time, Sophocles the Athenian. Placing his plays within their historical context, and explaining the conventions of ancient Greek tragic theatre, Edith Hall spotlights their distinctive features-tight plots, titanic personalities, lucid style, sympathetic women, exquisite poetry, and stagecraft. This analysis is followed by an account of how and why Sophoclean dramas have survived to be read and widely performed into the twenty-first century. ABOUT THE SERIES: The Very Short Introductions series from Oxford University Press contains hundreds of titles in almost every subject area. These pocket-sized books are the perfect way to get ahead in a new subject quickly. Our expert authors combine facts, analysis, perspective, new ideas, and enthusiasm to make interesting and challenging topics highly readable.

They gave us democracy, philosophy, poetry, rational science, the joke. They built the Parthenon and the Library of Alexandria. But who were the ancient Greeks? And what was it that enabled them to achieve so much? This title offers a revelatory way of viewing this geographically scattered people, and more.

What made the Greeks unique in their time and why their influence lives on today.

Flying to Heaven to demand an end to war, building Cloudcuckooland in the sky, descending to Hades to retrieve a dead tragedian - such were the cosmic missions on which Aristophanes, the father of comedy, sent his heroes of the classical Athenian stage.

Wonderful . . . a thoughtful discussion of what made [the Greeks] so important, in their own time and in ours. Natalie Haynes, Independent"

As the earliest surviving European drama, Persians is of incalculable interest to students of ancient literature. This edition offers facing translation, commentary and notes that focus on the visual and aural effects Aeschylus created, his extraordinarily rich imagery, and the play's unique contribution to Athenian democratic ideology.

The extensive performance history of Euripides' Medea since the Renaissance underscores its lasting social and political relevance.