Postdramatic Tragedies (Classical Presences Series). Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2020. Pp. x + 312, illus. £79. 9780198817680

The book concludes that classical tragedy has played a crucial role in the development of postdramatic forms, and that the postdramatic provides insight into the role of tragedy in modernity (276). Cole maintains that ‘postdramatic techniques can translate feeling, sensation, and emotion from a source text … and can foreignize an adaptation and make a familiar text become strange’ (24), yet in the book the ‘postdramatic’ becomes a taxonomical problem as a one-size-fits-all category. Undoubtedly, this well-written book is a significant contribution to classical reception studies, mostly because it enriches the philological and philosophical study of tragedy with new analytical tools that broaden its interpretation.