Murder Most Foul: Violence in the Classics

Murder Most Foul is a literary study aimed at a general audience that links and compares several great works of world literature to themes of violence and suffering. Included are Shakespeares Hamlet, Homers Iliad and Odyssey, Herman Melvilles Moby Dick, and several works of the great Greek tragediansAeschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides. The gods of Greek mythology, led by the great god Zeus, were instrumental in causing the pain and strife. The author makes the point that death and destruction, war and violence assert themselves everywhere in great works, and thus draws a conclusion that it is part and parcel of existence in all eras of mankind. The title is taken from Hamlet, words spoken to Hamlet by the ghost of his murdered father.