Edited by Valeria Finucci (NHC Fellow, 2009–10) Valeria Miani’s Celinda (1611), the only female-authored secular tragedy of early modern Italy, is here made available for the first time in a modern edition. Miani’s tale of the doomed love of the Lydian princess Celinda for the cross-dressed Persian prince Autilio/ Lucinia offers a striking example of the explorative … Continued
By Maynard Mack (NHC Fellow, 1984–85; 1986–87) Everybody’s Shakespeare brings the insights and wisdom of one of the finest Shakespearean scholars of our century to the task of surveying why the Bard continues to flourish in modern times. Mack treats individually seven plays—Hamlet, King Lear, Macbeth, Othello, Romeo and Juliet, Julius Cesar, and Antony and Cleopatra—and demonstrates … Continued
By Andrea Frisch (NHC Fellow, 2004–05) By juxtaposing representations of the French civil war past as they appear (and frequently overlap) in historiography and tragedy from 1550-1630, Andrea Frisch tracks changes in the ways in which history and tragedy sought to 'move' readers throughout the period of the wars and in their wake. The book … Continued
By Christopher Gill (NHC Fellow, 1981–82) This is a major study of conceptions of selfhood and personality in Homer, Greek tragedy, and philosophy. The focus is on norms of personality in Greek psychology and ethics. The key thesis is that, to understand Greek thinking of this type, we need to counteract the subjective and individualistic … Continued
By Jonathan Dollimore (NHC Fellow, 1988–89) When it was first published, Radical Tragedy was hailed as a groundbreaking reassessment of the drama of Shakespeare and his contemporaries. An engaged reading of the past with compelling contemporary significance, Radical Tragedy remains a landmark study of Renaissance drama. The third edition of this critically acclaimed work includes a new foreword by … Continued
By Richard Seaford (NHC Fellow, 1992–93) This is an exciting and entirely new synthesis, combining anthropology, political and social history, and a close reading of central Greek texts, to account for two of the most significant hallmarks in Homeric epic and Athenian tragedy: the representation of ritual, and codes of reciprocity. Both genres are pervaded … Continued
By Neil W. Bernstein (NHC Fellow, 2011–12) Hercules is the best-known character from classical mythology. Seneca's play Hercules Furens presents the hero at a moment of triumph turned to tragedy. Hercules returns from his final labor, his journey to the Underworld, and then slaughters his family in an episode of madness. This play exerted great influence on … Continued
By Charles Segal (NHC Fellow, 1993–94) Much has been written about the heroic figures of Sophocles’ powerful dramas. Now Charles Segal focuses our attention not on individual heroes and heroines, but on the world that inspired and motivated their actions—a universe of family, city, nature, and the supernatural. He shows how these ancient masterpieces offer insight into … Continued