Northwestern Events Calendar

May
16
2025

Suspense and Surprise in Greek Tragedy

When: Friday, May 16, 2025
3:30 PM - 5:00 PM CT

Where: University Hall, Hagstrum Room, 1897 Sheridan Road, Evanston, IL 60208 map it

Audience: Faculty/Staff - Student - Public - Post Docs/Docs - Graduate Students

Contact: Caroline Stevens  

Group: Department of Classics

Category: Academic, Lectures & Meetings

Description:

Visiting Lecture by Glenn Most

Starting from Alfred Hitchcock's classic distinction between suspense and surprise, I ask how much of each we find in Greek tragedy. Given that the tragic plots were generally well known, we might expect to find very little of either. And yet the surviving tragedies show that there was much of both. What forms these assumed, and how they were managed, reveals much about the ancient tragedians and their relations to their audiences. I conclude with some considerations about differences between ancient and modern literature in this regard.

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