Mario Telò in his Greek Tragedy in a Global Crisis addresses head on the question of how ancient texts can speak to and inform modern realities. Set during the 2020 global lockdown caused by the COVID 19 pandemic, Telò seeks to address that urgent problem and the subsequent problems caused by the pandemic through some of the most important figures of Greek tragedies. This work is divided into four parts – (1) Air Time Faces, (2) Communities, (3) Ruins and (4) Insurrections – themes around which his close readings of key Greek tragedies are clustered. Telò, a noted expert in his field, presents a well-researched, thorough reading of contemporary reality through the classical texts and contemporary literary theory. The text is dense with references to figures such as Foucault, Agamben, Barthes, Derrida and Deleuze. The pandemic, according to Telò, has torn down the distinction between spectator and performer in the tragedy and placed us all in the drama. In this work, the pandemic seems to lay bare all of the incongruities and tragic realities of the world. Telò turns to the ancient Greek tragedies to elucidate the complexities of the pandemic and post-pandemic world.
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