Recent scholarship on how the ancient playwright used the Greek language is presented in 15 essays, some selected from presentations at a September 2003 conference in Amsterdam, and some solicited later for the volume. Taking the three linguistic features in turn, they discuss such topics as some issues of vocabulary in Sophocles and Homer, false historic presents in Sophocles and Euripides, and speech acts and non-verbal actions in Sophoclean tragedies. Greek passages are either translated or paraphrased in English. Annotation ©2006 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)