Volume 1

Friedrich Gottlieb Welcker (1784-1868) was one of the most engaging and creative of German philologists during the formative period of modern classical scholarship; 'one of the heroes', Wilamowitz called him. Art, poetry and religion were to him all the same object of study, and a key to the world of Greek imagination and feeling. His attempt to grasp the meaning of all Greek mythology gave impetus to a still vigorous tradition. This work (in two volumes, first published 1835 and 1849) is his effort to recover the lost epics of the archaic period, and the conditions of their performance and transmission. If his adventurous reconstructions, here and in his companion work on Greek tragedy, do not always command assent, they offer many brilliant observations and insights. His influence has been as diffuse as it is unacknowledged; again and again one finds on reading him that Welcker said it first.

Volume 2

Friedrich Gottlieb Welcker (1784–1868) championed a comprehensive approach to antiquity, embracing history, literature, art and religion. This, and his openness to contemporary philosophical ideas about aesthetics and mythology, gave his work a visionary quality that inspired later figures as diverse as Usener and Wilamowitz. In this three-volume work on tragedy, his largest, published between 1839 and 1841, he attempts to reconstruct all the lost trilogies and tetralogies of Greek tragic theatre, insisting on their artistic unity, and demonstrating their fundamental debt to the Epic Cycle (which he had investigated in his Der Epische Cyclus, also reissued in this series). Amid much that is fantastic he made many brilliant discoveries, such that he must still be consulted by all serious students of the subject. Volume 1 deals with the period and plays of Aeschylus and Sophocles.

Volume 2

Der Epische Cyclus

by Friedrich Gottlieb Welcker

Published 25 November 2010
Friedrich Gottlieb Welcker (1784–1868) was one of the most engaging and creative of German philologists during the formative period of modern classical scholarship; 'one of the heroes', Wilamowitz called him. Art, poetry and religion were to him all the same object of study, and a key to the world of Greek imagination and feeling. His attempt to grasp the meaning of all Greek mythology gave impetus to a still vigorous tradition. This work (in two volumes, first published 1835 and 1849) is his effort to recover the lost epics of the archaic period, and the conditions of their performance and transmission. If his adventurous reconstructions, here and in his companion work on Greek tragedy, do not always command assent, they offer many brilliant observations and insights. His influence has been as diffuse as it is unacknowledged; again and again one finds on reading him that Welcker said it first.

Friedrich Gottlieb Welcker (1784-1868) championed a comprehensive approach to antiquity, embracing history, literature, art and religion. This, and his openness to contemporary philosophical ideas about aesthetics and mythology, gave his work a visionary quality that inspired later figures as diverse as Usener and Wilamowitz. In this three-volume work on tragedy, his largest, published between 1839 and 1841, he attempts to reconstruct all the lost trilogies and tetralogies of Greek tragic theatre, insisting on their artistic unity, and demonstrating their fundamental debt to the Epic Cycle (which he had investigated in his Der Epische Cyclus, also reissued in this series). Amid much that is fantastic he made many brilliant discoveries, such that he must still be consulted by all serious students of the subject.

Friedrich Gottlieb Welcker (1784-1868) championed a comprehensive approach to antiquity, embracing history, literature, art and religion. This, and his openness to contemporary philosophical ideas about aesthetics and mythology, gave his work a visionary quality that inspired later figures as diverse as Usener and Wilamowitz. In this three-volume work on tragedy, his largest, published between 1839 and 1841, he attempts to reconstruct all the lost trilogies and tetralogies of Greek tragic theatre, insisting on their artistic unity, and demonstrating their fundamental debt to the Epic Cycle (which he had investigated in his Der Epische Cyclus, also reissued in this series). Amid much that is fantastic he made many brilliant discoveries, such that he must still be consulted by all serious students of the subject. Volume 3 discusses Greek tragedy in the Hellenistic period and the influence of Greek tragedy on later Roman drama.

Friedrich Gottlieb Welcker (1784-1868) championed a comprehensive approach to antiquity, embracing history, literature, art and religion. This, and his openness to contemporary philosophical ideas about aesthetics and mythology, gave his work a visionary quality that inspired later figures as diverse as Usener and Wilamowitz. In this three-volume work on tragedy, his largest, published between 1839 and 1841, he attempts to reconstruct all the lost trilogies and tetralogies of Greek tragic theatre, insisting on their artistic unity, and demonstrating their fundamental debt to the Epic Cycle (which he had investigated in his Der Epische Cyclus, also reissued in this series). Amid much that is fantastic he made many brilliant discoveries, such that he must still be consulted by all serious students of the subject. Volume 2 discusses Euripides, and the Trojan and Theban epic cycles.

Friedrich Gottlieb Welcker (1784-1868) championed a comprehensive approach to antiquity, embracing history, literature, art and religion. This, and his openness to contemporary philosophical ideas about aesthetics and mythology, gave his work a visionary quality that inspired later figures as diverse as Usener and Wilamowitz. In this three-volume work on tragedy, his largest, published between 1839 and 1841, he attempts to reconstruct all the lost trilogies and tetralogies of Greek tragic theatre, insisting on their artistic unity, and demonstrating their fundamental debt to the Epic Cycle (which he had investigated in his Der Epische Cyclus, also reissued in this series). Amid much that is fantastic he made many brilliant discoveries, such that he must still be consulted by all serious students of the subject. Volume 1 deals with the period and plays of Aeschylus and Sophocles.

Friedrich Gottlieb Welcker (1784-1868) was one of the most engaging and creative of German philologists during the formative period of modern classical scholarship; 'one of the heroes', Wilamowitz called him. Art, poetry and religion were to him all the same object of study, and a key to the world of Greek imagination and feeling. His attempt to grasp the meaning of all Greek mythology gave decisive impetus to a still vigorous tradition. This work (in two volumes, first published 1835 and 1849) is his effort to recover the lost epics of the archaic period, and the conditions of their performance and transmission. If his adventurous reconstructions do not always command assent, they offer many brilliant observations and insights in the making. His influence has been as diffuse as it is unacknowledged; again and again one finds on reading him that Welcker said it first.

Friedrich Gottlieb Welcker (1784-1868) was one of the most engaging and creative of German philologists during the formative period of modern classical scholarship; 'one of the heroes', Wilamowitz called him. Art, poetry and religion were to him all the same object of study, and a key to the world of Greek imagination and feeling. His attempt to grasp the meaning of all Greek mythology gave impetus to a still vigorous tradition. This work (in two volumes, first published 1835 and 1849) is his effort to recover the lost epics of the archaic period, and the conditions of their performance and transmission. If his adventurous reconstructions, here and in his companion work on Greek tragedy, do not always command assent, they offer many brilliant observations and insights. His influence has been as diffuse as it is unacknowledged; again and again one finds on reading him that Welcker said it first.