Tragedy – A Student Handbook

Tragedy – A Student Handbook is a comprehensive introduction to tragedy, designed for advanced level and undergraduate students. It provides clear explanations of key concepts in tragedy and changing ideas about tragedy over time, from classical theories and Renaissance thinking through to modern interpretations.

There are short introductions to broad periods and contexts – Greek tragedy, Renaissance tragedy, European playwrights of the late 19th century, modern American tragedy, modern British tragedy and modern Irish tragedy – as well as accounts of the work of significant playwrights, including Sophocles, Shakespeare, Webster, Marlowe, Ibsen, Beckett, Arthur Miller, Tennessee Williams and Brian Friel. Key plays are explored in more detail. These include: Oedipus, major Shakespearean tragedies, The Duchess of Malfi, The White Devil, A Doll’s House, Waiting for Godot, A Streetcar Named Desire, The Glass Menagerie, Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, Death of A Salesman, All My Sons, A View from the Bridge, Playboy of the Western World, Shadow of a Gunman and Translations.

The text includes short extracts from criticism, a glossary of terms and questions to provoke reflection on the way individual plays use the tragic form.