Greek Tragic Women on Shakespearean Stages argues that ancient
Greek plays exerted a powerful and uncharted influence on early
modern England's dramatic landscape. Drawing on original research
to challenge longstanding assumptions about Greek texts'
invisibility, the book shows not only that the plays were more
prominent than we have believed, but that early modern readers and
audiences responded powerfully to specific plays and themes. The
Greek plays most popular in the period were not male-centered
dramas such as Sophocles' Oedipus, but tragedies by Euripides that
focused on raging bereaved mothers and sacrificial virgin
daughters, especially Hecuba and Iphigenia. Because tragedy was
firmly linked with its Greek origin in the period's writings, these
iconic female figures acquired a privileged status as synecdoches
for the tragic theater and its ability to conjure sympathetic
emotions in audiences. When Hamlet reflects on the moving power of
tragic performance, he turns to the most prominent of these
figures: 'What's Hecuba to him, or he to Hecuba/ That he should
weep for her?' Through readings of plays by Shakespeare and his
contemporary dramatists, this book argues that newly visible Greek
plays, identified with the origins of theatrical performance and
represented by passionate female figures, challenged early modern
writers to reimagine the affective possibilities of tragedy,
comedy, and the emerging genre of tragicomedy.
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