Charles Segal

Charles Paul Segal (March 19, 1936 — January 1, 2002) was an American classicist renowned for his application of critical theory to ancient texts. Although his work spanned a variety of Latin and Greek genres, he is best known for his work on Greek tragedy. His most influential work is Tragedy and Civilization: an Interpretation of Sophocles, in which he presents a structuralist approach to Greek theatre.

Career

Segal graduated from Harvard University in 1957 and, four years later, was awarded a doctorate from the same institution for a 900-page thesis on the philosopher Democritus. He held academic positions at Brown University, Princeton University and the University of Pennsylvania, before returning to his alma mater in 1990. There, he served as the Walter C. Klein Professor of Classics until his death in 2002.

Selected publications

Tragedy and Civilization: An Interpretation of Sophocles, University of Oklahoma Press, 1981 Dionysiac Poetics and Euripides' Bacchae, Princeton University Press, 1982 Pindar's Mythmaking: The Fourth Pythian Ode, Princeton University Press, 1986 Language and Desire in Seneca's Phaedra, Princeton University Press, 1986 Interpreting Greek Tragedy: Myth, Poetry, Text, Cornell University Press, 1986 Orpheus: the Myth of the Poet, Johns Hopkins University Press, 1989 Lucretius on Death and Anxiety, Princeton University Press, 1990 Euripides and the Poetics of Sorrow: Art, Gender, and Commemoration in Alcestis, Hippolytus, and Hecuba, Duke University Press, 1993 Oedipus Tyrannus: Tragic Heroism and the Limits of Knowledge, Twayne Publishers, 1993 Singers, Heroes, and Gods in the Odyssey, Cornell University Press, 1994 Sophocles’ Tragic World: Divinity, Nature, Society, Harvard University Press, 1995