Synopses & Reviews
In The Eating of the Gods the distinguished Polish critic Jan Kott reexamines Greek tragedy from the modern perspective. As in his earlier acclaimed Shakespeare Our Contemporary, Kott provides startling insights and intuitive leaps which link our world to that of the ancient Greeks. The title refers to the Bacchae of Euripides, that tragedy of lust, revenge, murder, and "the joy of eating raw flesh" which Kott finds paradigmatic in its violence and bloodshed.
Review
"He sights at Greek tragedy along the smoking chimneys of Auschwitz. . . . No 20th century [critic] could come closer to making Sophocles a contemporary."
—Melvin Maddocks, Time
About the Author
Jan Kott was born in Warsaw, Poland in 1914. In 1969 he left Poland for the United States. He received the 1985 George Jean Nathan Award for Dramatic Criticism for The Theater of Essence (Northwestern University Press, 1984).
Table of Contents
Preface
Introduction
The Vertical Axis, or The Ambiguities of Prometheus
Ajax Thrice Deceived, or The Heroism of the Absurd
The Veiled Alcestis
"But Where Now Is Famous Heracles?"
I. The Faces of Heracles
II. Black Sophocles, or the Circulation of Poisons
III. "Oh to Be a Stone!"
IV. Philoctetes, or The Refusal
The Eating of the Gods, or The Bacchae
Appendices
Medea at Pescara
Orestes, Electra, Hamlet
Lucian in Cymbeline
Notes
Index