The great treasury of Greek drama, the vast majority of which has now been lost, was written by a small handful of writers, in a single Greek city, with a population in the tens of thousands, emerging from the illiterate depths of bronze-age prehistory. One might be forgiven for guessing that the products of these writers would not survive the test of time. And yet—the treatment of the human condition by Aeschylus and Sophocles, Euripides and Aristophanes, has proved to hold enduring interest across centuries and cultures. As we read, we will ask what all these very old Greek things have to do with humanity today.
We will read: Prometheus Bound, Agamemnon, The Libation Bearers, The Eumenides, Ajax, Oedipus Rex, Oedipus at Colonus, Antigone, The Bacchae, Medea, Hippolytus, Helen, The Birds, The Clouds, and The Frogs.
- Teacher: Dr. Frank Russell