The Greek Sense of Theatre: Tragedy Reviewed - Softcover

In The Greek Sense of Theatre J. Michael Walton proposes that we consider Greek tragedy of the fifth century BC as performance-based, with a visual emphasis overlooked in much classical scholarship.
This approach is placed in the context of a visual tradition in the arts in Athens, notably in architecture, sculpture and painting, which reveals a sophisticated appreciation of space and line. A logical extension of this appreciation through other performance elements - such as music and dance - suggests that the Greeks viewed tragedy as a synthesis of other means of perception rather than as the extension of literature it was later to become.

In this work the author proposes that one should consider Greek tragedy of the 5th-century BC as performance-based, with a visual emphasis. He does not consider language as the most important feature of Greek drama. Professor Walton also contends that a close consideration of the surviving Greek tragedies reveals that all three major tragedians wrote with a masked performance in mind which promoted the use of visual images above and beyond the spoken word.