Amid Our Troubles : Irish Versions of Greek Tragedy

That so many Irish playwrights should return to the Greek classics can not really be a surprise.

Drama in Ireland is still a means of exploring issues of family and state; of gender, class and race; of the oppressors and the oppressed.

It is political in the broad sense in which the Greeks understood the word, involving everyone - immediate but concentrated through parallel and parable.This collection of provocative essays reveals how some of the great Irish poets and dramatists, of the past and present, have drawn on Greek myths and used these stories, which have travelled across 3000 years, to bring new insights on the world in which we now live.The title includes essays from, amongst others, Athol Fugard, Seamus Heaney and Tom Paulin.

It also looks at the work of such writers as Marina Carr, Brian Friel, Brendan Kennelly, Frank McGuinness and W.B.

Yates.