Dr. Louise Cowan, general editor of this collection of eighteen essays on tragedy is the third in a series on literary genre, tragedy, comedy, epic, and lyric, issued by Dallas Institute of Humanities and Culture publications. Dr. Glenn Arbery is editor of this volume on the genre most emphasized by Aristotle and most debated through the centuries by critics and commentators. The essays explore tragedies from the Old Testament and the ancient Greeks to the most contemporary instances of the tragic action in dramatic and narrative forms. Contributors include Louise Cowan, Glenn Arbery, Robert S. Dupree, Bainard Cowan, Daniel Russ, Dennis Slattery, Virginia Arbery, Judith Stewart Shank, Mary Mumbach, James Walter, Paul Connell, Gregory Marks, Larry Allums, and Kathleen Marks. Dallas Institute Publications publishes works concerned with the imaginative, mythic, and symbolic sources of culture.