Reconstructing the Classics collects across three volumes over ninety papers by P. J. Finglass (Henry Overton Wills Professor of Greek at the University of Bristol, and formerly Professor of Greek at the University of Nottingham) on Greek lyric poetry, Greek tragedy, and related subjects in Greek literature. Written over nearly two decades, these papers are founded on a close philological analysis of ancient Greek texts: whether long-established classics such the seven surviving plays of Sophocles, or the 'new classics' revealed via the publication of long-lost ancient papyrus manuscripts, which demand the most careful scrutiny to yield their riches. The reinvigoration of our understanding of familiar classics through the painstaking reconstructing of new ones lies at the heart of the scholarship on Greek literature presented in these volumes.
This second volume of the collection focuses on Greek Tragedy, and in particular on Sophocles. Finglass's ongoing critical edition with commentary on the seven surviving plays of Sophocles has been accompanied by numerous papers on that dramatist, covering topics as diverse as textual criticism, transmission, style, performance, rhetoric, narrative, characterisation, and politics.
