The Three Electras

Michael Davis on Philosophy and Greek Tragedy

There are a couple of works in the Great Books canon, Frogs by the ancient comic dramatist Aristophanes, and The Birth of Tragedy by the 19^th-century philosopher Nietzsche, that get one thinking about Greek Tragedy in a comparative and developmental sense. 

Frogs sets up a mock-contest which pits Aeschylus against Euripides, and awards the crown to the f…