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GK4102   Greek Tragedy

Academic year(s): 2025-2026

Key information

SCOTCAT credits : 30

ECTS credits : 15

Level : SCQF level 10

Semester: 1

Availability restrictions: Available to General Degree students with the permission of the Honours Adviser

Planned timetable: To be arranged

This module increases the student's familiarity with Greek tragedy. Plays of Aeschylus, Sophocles and Euripides are prescribed for detailed study, and students learn to address questions of content, context and staging in prepared texts, to translate passages from unprepared texts, and to address wider dramatic and generic issues.

Relationship to other modules

Pre-requisite(s): 40 credits from GK2001, GK2002 and (gk2003, GK2004, or GK3021, GK3022)

Learning and teaching methods and delivery

Weekly contact: 1 seminar and 1 tutorial/lecture.

Scheduled learning hours: 20

Guided independent study hours: 280

Assessment pattern

As used by St Andrews: 2-hour Written Examination = 40%, Coursework = 60%

As defined by QAA
Written examinations : 55%
Practical examinations : 0%
Coursework: 45%

Re-assessment: Examination = 100%

Personnel

Module coordinator: Dr J P Hesk
Module teaching staff: Dr Jon Hesk
Module coordinator email jph4@st-andrews.ac.uk

Intended learning outcomes

  • Identify, understand and describe the key features of a range of texts of Greek Tragedy.
  • Describe the evolution and essence of Greek Tragedy as a genre while also showing critical awareness of the problems of evidence and interpretation which attend any such descriptions.
  • Display advanced skills in translating and commenting on selected texts of Greek Tragedy.
  • Analyse Greek Tragedy in relation to its aesthetic, social, cultural and political contexts and the values and ideology of both classical Athens and the wider Greek world.
  • Analyse and critically evaluate published research on Greek Tragedy.
  • Devise coherent and critically aware arguments both orally and in writing on key aspects of Greek Tragedy via a thorough analysis of the set primary texts and the evaluation of relevant published scholarship.