Books in the Companions to Greek and Roman Tragedy series

Provides background, context, plot summary and analysis, a survey of criticism and of the reception of the play from the Hellenistic period to modern times, including performance history.

Aeschylus' 'Suppliants' dramatises the myth of the fifty daughters of Danaos, who flee Egypt and come to Argos as suppliants, trying to escape forced marriage to their Egyptian cousins. It was long considered to be the earliest surviving tragedy.

Set at the end of the Trojan war, this book depicts the women of Troy as they wait to be taken into slavery. It introduces readers to the issues that have divided critics, such as the extent to which the play responds to the historical events of the Peloponnesian War.

Sophocles' "Women of Trachis" tells the tragic tale of Herakles return home from his labours. This companion to the play provides the social and historical background and employs a number of critical approaches to interpret the major thematic and dramatic issues of the play.

"Orestes" was one of Euripides' most popular plays in antiquity. Its plot, which centres on Orestes' murder of his mother Clytemnestra and its aftermath, is exciting as well as morally complex; its presentation of madness is intense and disturbing; and, it deals with politics in a way which has resonances for ancient and modern democracies.

Sophocles brings the aged Oedipus to Athens, where he seeks succour and finds refuge, despite the threatening arrival of his kinsman Creon, who tries to tempt and then force the old man back under Theban control. Oedipus' resistance shows a fierceness in no way dimmed by incapacity, but he also refuses to aid his repentant son, Polyneices.

Tells the story of a young man's search for his identity, and a woman's attempt to come to terms with her past. This study outlines the pre-history and later reception of the Ion myth, and provides a literary interpretation of the play's main themes, aiming to combine analysis of the text with a consideration of its cultural contexts.

Presenting a scene-by-scene analysis of Euripides' "Suppliant Women", this book discusses the date and background of the play, whether people and events from contemporary Athens can be glimpsed in the drama; the problems of staging, and finally the story in later tradition.

Phaedra is one of Seneca's most successful tragedies. This book introduces the reader to the complex dramatic and literary inheritance which Seneca appropriated and in his turn bequeathed, and he sets out some of the main lines of contemporary interpretation and performance practice for this play.