Moreover, the novel fits with the themes of a Greek Tragedy: the idea of conflict, sacrifice, retribution, knowledge, fate as well as the characteristics: hamartia, narration, language, unity. Jean-Pierre Vernant's definition of tragedy: 'the field of the problematical, the area where the familiar institutions are called into question and the moral vocabulary, no longer adequate, becomes ambiguous or self-contradictory' fits exactly into the novel and what it is portraying: it questions morality, youthful ignorance and hubris, the denial of modern reality and a dark side of intellectual endeavour. Furthermore, I wanted to explore why Tartt connected her novel so much to that of a Greek Tragedy, and I read Francois Pauw's 'the classical intertext in Donna Tartt's The Secret History' to understand this further. I wanted to explore this connection further, and so read Aristotle's 'Poetics' as well as Peter Burian's article 'Myth into muthos: the shaping of a tragic plot' to use as sources to judge the novel by, in terms of what classical tragedian conventions it used. When I read 'The Secret History' (1992) by Donna Tartt, what struck me most was its connection with the classical world.

Donna Tartt's 'The Secret History' follows a year of six classic student's lives at a New England College, starting the novel off with the declaration of a murder.

The secret history byzantium