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...

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...

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...

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...

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...