Third Year Major Special Subject RECEPTIONS OF GREEK TRAGEDY Dr Pantelis Michelakis and Dr Vanda Zajko Teaching Block 2: 2008-9 Unit Code CLAS32347: 40 Credits

This unit will take as its focus six of the most influential ancient Greek plays and moments in their reception history in the 20th Century. It will explore the broad question of how the modern world has appropriated Greek drama to make sense of and interrogate its own identities. We will study a selection of theoretical, theatrical and cinematic texts which raise important issues about the possibility of cultural translation and the politicisation of the classical past. We will consider a number of the following questions: What is tragedy? To what extent is it a theoretical concept or a set of formal generic conventions? What is reception? How do reworkings of Greek tragedy in a variety of media contribute to ongoing debates about the changing images of what constitutes the classical? Does the study of texts in performance pose particular problems for reception history? The themes addressed will include the role of genre, Marxism, colonisation, the nature of modernity, psychoanalysis, feminism, memory and history, elitist and popular cultures. On successful completion of this unit students should: • be familiar with the differing ways in which tragedy has been configured in the texts studied, and the uses to which these have been put • have developed their skills in reading and interpreting different kinds of texts in relation to issues of reception and translation • be able to use the knowledge acquired in seminars and through independent research to construct coherent, relevant and critical arguments concerning the interpretative issues raised by the texts studied • have had the opportunity to develop their skills in oral and written communication, in making seminar presentations and in discussing the presentations of others, and in essays and written exams Contact hours and mode of teaching: 4 hours per week, seminars Pre-requisites: none Minimum and maximum numbers: 7 and 15 Assessment: 1 essay of approx. 3000 words (50 marks); 1 seminar presentation (50 marks); 1 three-hour exam worth 100 marks consisting of 3 passages (out of 8) for comment (50 marks) and two essay questions (out of 8; 50 marks). Total: 200 marks.

Set Texts will include: Tony Harrison, Prometheus - video available from tutors, published screenplay (1998) Faber Igor Stravinsky/Jean Cocteau, Oedipus Rex (1928)* Stephen Berkoff, Greek in S. Berkoff The Collected Plays vol.1 (1994) Faber Pier Paolo Pasolini, Medea (1970) - video of film available from tutors Yukio Ninagawa, Medea - video of stage production available from tutors Martha Graham Night Journey – video of production available fro tutors Marina Carr, Ariel (2002) The Gallery Press Arianne Mnouchkine Les Atrides (stage production 1991-3) - visual material available from tutors. Aristotle, Poetics, ed. S. Halliwell, Duckworth Friedrich Nietzsche, The Birth of Tragedy ed. R. Guess & R. Speirs, CUP Arthur Miller, ‘Tragedy of the Common Man’* Tony Harrison’s introduction to published screenplay of Prometheus N.B. Starred items will be distributed by tutors. Students will be expected to have read in translation by the start of the unit Aeschylus’ Prometheus and Oresteia, Sophocles’ Oedipus the King, Euripides’ Medea and Iphigenia at Aulis

Essential Reading P. Easterling (ed.) (1996) The Cambridge Companion to Greek Tragedy, CUP, esp. section on reception E. Hall et al. (eds.) (2004) Dionysus Since 69: Greek Tragedy at the Dawn of the Third Millennium, OUP, esp. ch.1 (introduction) L. Hardwick (2003) Reception Studies, OUP A. Poole (2005) Tragedy: a Very Short Introduction, OUP D.Wiles (2000) Greek Theatre Performance: An Introduction, CUP, esp. section on reception