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Title: The Political Art of Greek Tragedy by Christian Meier, Andrew Webber ISBN: 0-8018-4727-3 Publisher: Johns Hopkins Univ Pr Pub. Date: October, 1993 Format: Hardcover Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $40.00

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Average Customer Rating: 4 (1 review)

Rating: 4
Summary: Politics on the Greek Stage
Comment: Review of The Political Art of Greek Tragedy. Christian Meier. Andrew Webber, trans. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins UP, 1993. 219 pp.

We accept without question that plays written today reflect our cultural mores and political ideology. Witness recent feminist plays or the Vietnam era's Macbird. However no one until Christian Meier's The Political art of Greek Tragedy has shown how the Greek tragedies reflected their time of enormous political innovation. Focusing on the works of Aeschylus and Sophocles which were written during the gradual development of the first democracy, Meier shows how contemporary political changes must have been justified by dramatizing re-interpretations of the myths and how these productions corresponded to the growing political sense of the Athenian citizenry. For example, Meier is persuasive in suggesting that the conflict between the old and the new order of gods in the Eumenides is representative of the removal of authority from the aristocratic council of the Areopagus and the passing of power to the citizens'assembly, which event occurred in the years immediately preceding the performance of the Orestia. Meier's suggestions are thought-provoking and enlightening, however, with the dearth of evidence from 25 centuries past, some of his correspondences seem less plausible than others. This text is a welcome addition for readers and historians, and is an exceptionally valuable resource for those who teach dramatic literature. And, unlike some books translated from the German, Andrew Webber's translation is readable.

BARBARA MACKEY, Ph.D. University of Toledo