Reading the Bacchae. Recently read an article in the New York Review of Books positing that, unlike most comedies that have their genesis as a response to a tragedy, this tragedy actually has its genesis in response to a comedy, The Thesmophoriasuzae by Aristophanes. Interesting.....
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What I wouldn't give to see a production of this play, a GOOD production of this play. It could be the most harrowing theatrical experience.

THE PHONECIAN WOMEN
This play fills in the back story behind the ‘Seven Against Thebes’ war between the two sons of Oedipus. We learn that one son, Eteocles, is in the wrong because he will not relinquish the throne to his brother (they agreed to take turns ruling every other year). The other son, Polyneices, is also in the wrong because he brought a foreign army to forcibly take Thebes. These two wrongs constitute the downfall and ruin of the family of Oedipus. Which crime is worse: to love power, ambition and tyranny or to betray your country? This is the argument between the two brothers and neither will relent.

Historically, this play has been ‘tampered’ with and is not purely Euripides. There are problems with storyline. Oedipus has not yet been ejected from Thebes. Antigone is betrothed to Haemon, but still has her long journey with Oedipus before she defies the state in burying her brother Polyneices. “the Creon-Odeipus-Antigone scene we have is certainly not the one Euripides wrote. Note, for one thing, that Antigone is apparently planning both to go into exile, at once, with Oedipus and, in defiance of Creon, to bury Polyneices. This is impossible, but the author is simply assimilating his figure to both Sophoclean Antigones.” (Euripides V, Edited by David Grene and Richmond Lattimore, pg. 68-69)

In every play of the three tragedians, there is a chorus. The chorus unfailingly uses allusion to refer to past events and draw similarities to present events. As I have been reading mythology I have increasingly understood these allusions. For example, the words “unmothered Pallas’”(see below) refers to Athena, sometimes called Pallas, who sprang from the forehead of Zeus. Zeus is her only parent and so she has no mother.

The following lines tell the tale of Cadmus sowing the dragon’s teeth. “By the instructions of Athena, he sowed the dragon's teeth in the ground, from which there sprang a race of fierce armed men, called the Spartoí ("sown"). By throwing a stone among them, Cadmus caused them to fall upon one another until only five survived, who assisted him to build the Cadmeia or citadel of Thebes, and became the founders of the noblest families of that city.” (Wikipedia) The allusion is beautifully written and I am always amazed how much information these tragedians can convey with so few words.

CHORUS: “sowing its teeth in the furrows deep, at unmothered Pallas’ bidding.
Then earth sent up armed terror over its surface.
Iron-hearted slaughter sent them back again,
And their blood bedewed the land which had briefly showed them to the shining winds of heaven.”

THE BACCHAE – See my review in ‘Euripides: Ten Plays’
ELECTRA - See my review in ‘Electra and Other Plays’

4/5 stars

I read this for school but nonetheless it is still really good.

It was really good but I liked Antigone more. Antigone was the comparative text for this Greek Tragedy. Greek tragedies are nonetheless amazing. Electra was a bit of a weirdo...no offence but I love loved loved the character dynamics of Orestes. The exploration of guilt and responsibility is explored throughout...I might post my essay later because I expressed it better but more on that later lol

they’re just like me fr

Read for school. Great translation. The longest of Euripides plays in the series, so be prepared to focus on the main plots (try not to get trapped by the minor details throughout these plays).

Electra: 4/5
The Phoenician Women: 3/5
The Bacchae: 5/5.

Excellent book!!!

This version of Elektra is really interesting in that Euripedes comments on a number of things that relate to modern day Greek society as he knows it. Elektrais forcibly is married to a farmer with whom she won't sleep because he's too low born for her, even though both she and Orestes agree that the farmer is almost an aristocrat in sentiment even without money. Historically, Euripedes can be commenting on the first democracy in Athens, when kleisthenes abandoned the aristocratic system in favor of an assembly that didn't just allow members of old noble families.
Orestes " at times I have seen descendants of the noblest family grow worthless though the cowards had courageous sons; inside the souls of wealthy men bleak famine lives while minds of stature struggle trapped in starving bodies. How then can man distinguish man, what test can he use the test of wealth?..." He says that the farmer is truly noble "such men of manners can control our cities best, and homes, but the well born sportsman, long on muscle, short on brains, is only good for a statue in the park," but then concludes that he'd rather be a guest in town at some rich man's than at the poor farmers. But inherent is the argument that the Greeks were starting to live and experience that a noble upbringing meant nothing.
Also interesting are Clytemnestra's lines, similar to those of Medea about the double standard that women face "...when our husbands choose to despise the bed they, a woman is quite willing to imitate her man and find another friend. But then the dirty gossip puts us in the spotlight; the guilty ones, the men, are never blamed at all."

The Phoenician Women is mostly a story about oedipus's sons Eteocles who tricks his brother into leaving Thebes for a year but then when Polyneices comes back won't relinquish the power or split it with him. The two end up killing each other and Jocasta kills herself. Creon their uncle won't sacrifice his son Menoeceus to pacify the gods, but Menoeceus exemplifies the Greek love of the polis and kills himself in order to save Thebes, he is the true Greek in the story. Polyneices talks about the horror of exile, and that is a theme familiar to Greek literature to the Medea and the odyssey.

The Bacchae also takes place in Thebes, Dionysus (also known as Bacchus or bromius) is the son of Zeus and Semele ( the daughter of Cadmus) he punishes the people of Thebes but especially his aunt, cousin, and grandfather for not believing that Zeus is his father. Dionysus drives agave and other Theban women mad, and agave tears her son pentheus limb from limb. It is similar to the Medea in that a mother murders her child, but here it is done because of a madness induced by a god and the mother repents. The maenads are the same ones who year Orpheus limb from limb.

Disturbing and enthralling. I may never be able to stop thinking about The Bacchae - ever. What happens when you deny god in the flesh? Well, Dyonisius, the "incarnate life-force itself, the uncontrollable chaotic eruption of nature...the sap in the tree and the blood in the veins," who blesses his worshippers, and destroys or maddens his deniers, has come to tear his own relation limb from limb. Life, violence, self-knowlege, self-ignorance, worship and tradition, reason and individualism, and a god who cannot suffer - **sheesh**.

(also, I can't read Prince Caspian without trembling now.)

And so I finish my goal of reading the complete tragedies of Aeschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides. While certainly uneven (because of incomplete survival of the complete works), they are certainly intriguing works and raise fascinating questions of staging. I would say as a whole that I prefer Euripides who certainly feels most easily adapted to the modern stage, but what a treat to have these earliest examples of the Western theatre.

After reading the introduction to this series, I expected something much more fractured than what I encountered on the page; however, I found Euripides' style in this work to be very coherent. After reading Aeschylus, I noticed the aesthetic jump that Euripides had taken via the psychological subtext inherent in his characters. Whereas reading Aeschylus felt flat (although I enjoyed "Agamemnon"); there was too much exposition in Aeschylus; too much that did not expedite the forward motion of his plays. Whereas with Euripides, one is transported directly into the action that is happening in the present moment of the play, by means of the narrative, as well as the dialogue. Also noteworthy is Euripides' technique of having the characters exchange one-liners in dialogue. Although I immediately connected to all of the dramas in this edition, "The Bacchae" is a standout. It's a dark, crazy, absurd and even funny play; the highlight being the "Celebrity Death Match" between Pentheus and Dionysus. As grim as scenario of "The Bacchae" is, it often reads like a comedy (the scene with Pentheus "in drag" after having been hypnotized by Dionysus is hysterical). Euripides was ahead of his time, avant-garde; therefore of the great and / or known Greek playwrights, he was the one who garnered the fewest prizes. I'm looking forward to reading "Hippolytus" in Euripides I of this series.

And a third great collection of Greek tragedies that have also influenced modern writers.