GBS_insertPreviewButtonPopup ISBN 9780748619870 This powerful reinterpretation of Greek tragedy focuses on the performative the physical and civic dimension of tragedy It challenges the idealist humanist and universalist approaches that have informed our most cherished philosophical psychoanalytical and modern interpretations of Greek tragedy and in doing so asks us to renew our relation to these works and to our literary and philosophical inheritance The book reassesses tragic form in relation to Athenian democracy and links it with a performative discourse that both excludes the feminine and relies on civic and private forms of mourning At the same time it explores the centrality of tragedy for thinkers of Modernity such as Holderlin Nietzsche Hegel Freud Brecht and Benjamin Through a persuasive analysis of both classical theorists Plato and Aristotle and modern theorists Benjamin Lacan Kristeva Derrida and Butler the book significantly shifts the emphasis from a Sophoclean model of tragedy to a Euripidean one Close readings of the performance aspects of Greek play texts help illuminate these ideas FeaturesCompelling new interpretation of Greek tragedy Performance based Attentive to issues of gender