Reading Group: The Tragic in Ancient Sanskrit & Greek Drama

Previous participation and previous knowledge not required.

How did ancient Indians and Greeks understand the tragic? How did their literary imagination grapple with the unfolding of tragedy? While classical Greece is celebrated for the flourishing of tragedy as a dramatic genre at the festival of Dionysus, it is believed that ancient India did not have a concept of tragedy, and that its vast literary repertoire is largely marked by a conspicuous absence of the tragic. In this reading group, we will critically examine - and contest - this claim, asking what it means to witness a tragedy and how Greek and Indian notions of the tragic overlap and differ. Readings will include works by Aristotle, Aeschylus, Euripides, Bharata, Bhasa, Shudraka, Bhababhuti, and Kalidasa.

8-Week Text-In-Translation Reading Group

Fridays @ 1pm EST

Start date: July 8th

End date: August 26th