Achilles in Greek Tragedy

by Pantelis Michelakis

In contrast to earlier scholarly work on Achilles of the Homeric epics, this study examines how one of the most popular figures of Greek mythology was portrayed on the tragic stage of fifth-century Athens. Pantelis Michelakis asserts that dramatists persistently appropriated Achilles to address concerns ranging from heroism and education to individualism and gender. The book considers the complete corpus of extant Greek tragedy, with particular attention paid to Aeschylus' Myrmidons and Euripides' Hecuba and Iphigenia at Aulis.

236 pages, Paperback

First published September 26, 2002

About the author

Pantelis Michelakis is Reader in Classics at the University of Bristol. He works in the fields of archaic and classical Greek literature, Greek culture, and the classical tradition. He is the author of Greek Tragedy on Screen (OUP, 2013), Euripides' Iphigenia at Aulis (Duckworth, 2006), and Achilles in Greek Tragedy (CUP, 2002). He has also coedited The Ancient World in Silent Cinema (CUP 2013), Agamemnon in Performance, 458 BC to AD 2004 (OUP, 2005), and Homer, Tragedy and Beyond: essays in honour of P.E. Easterling (SPHS, 2001). He is currently working on a book on the reception of ancient Greece in early cinema and on articles on the concept of cultural transmission, on classics and cinema in the digital age, and on the performance history of Greco-Roman drama.