This book analyses discourses around community, democracy, origin and Western identity in stage adaptations of Greek tragedy. It addresses the ways in which theatre produces and perpetuates the myth of ‘classical’ Greece as the origin of Europe and how this narrative raises issues concerning the possibility of a transnational European community.

With particular attention to the ambivalent position of English as a roadblock to international visibility and as a necessary intermediary for other literary languages, this book underlines the discrepancy between what is read as world literature and what could potentially be read as such.

Is utopian literature a dream of harmony and justice or a nightmare of a controlled world with no ambivalence or discretion? Engaging with a wide range of texts from different periods and national traditions, leading scholars rethink ‘the good place’ and suggest that utopia, in the realm of fiction, is more than just a philosophical abstraction.