ABSTRACT
If this account of family resemblances in Greek plots carries conviction, it raises the interesting possibility of tracing parallels in later tragedies too. Do the other great periods of tragic drama reveal the same preoccupations? But to find a group of comparable dramas we have to leap two millennia, to the Renaissance. This raises questions about the conditions for tragedy we might briefly explore. Why, in the history of literature, is tragedy so intermittent?
