Medea is so awesome

This Euripides guy is going places for sure

I came across this volume a while back while perusing my book shelves. It was a text used in a class that I took in the development of drama. From all the underlining and notes that I added (which can be quite illuminating as well as embarrassing looked back upon after a decade or so), I can say that I was quite impressed by the dramas the class read: Alcestes, Medea, Hippolytus, Electra, and The Bacchants. What is surprising, is that we didn't read and discuss The Trojan Women, something I will do in the near future.

Euripides was the youngest of the big three and was not appreciated during his lifetime (which ended by being torn to pieces by hounds in his adopted country of Macedonia) only to become the most popular after his death. For what it's worth, according to one of my notes Euripides has more in common with Ibsen than he does with the Elizabethans.

And as some wag remarked: "Euripides, Eumenides,"

Some were better than others, and some of the typical Greek structure left something to be desired in a few of the plays, but overall it had good, complicated stories with complex characters (for the most part).

Would recommend?
Sure

A must read collection of classic Greek drama by one of its most famous playwrights. This collection contains all of the most well known of Euripides' plays including: "The Bacchae", "The Trojan Women", "Hippolytus", and seven more. A wonderful look at ancient Greek drama.

some variations among the reviews as to the edition, mine contains:

alcestis
medea
hippolytus
andromache
io0n
trojan women
electra
iphigenia among the taurians
the bacchants
iphigenia at aulis

i had already read trojan women, hippolytus and medea, so i did the other seven this time around. iphigenia among the taurians was probably the highlight for me but i really enjoyed all of them. a definitive edition would probably contain the complete works plus the fragments so the search continues

top 3 faves in no particular order: the trojan women, the bacchae and iphigenia among the taurians

8/18- re-read Bacchae, for live performance this weekend at getty villa. theme of fear of eastern religion spreading westward, radicalizing suppressed segments of society, and resulting in violence and mayhem; so timely now.
9/17-re-read Iphigenia in Aulis, for the live performance this weekend at the getty villa.
these translations are very modern and approachable.

相对于Sophocles清晰的高贵，Euripides呈现出一种芜杂的伟大。通常我认为我偏爱前者，但他促使我怀疑这一点。——翻译读起来很爽，但读到后来感觉太现代了

so fun! Not sure if this was the best translation, but the drama shines regardless.

Paul Roche's translations are very good: readable and often preserving elements of the original Greek. Pay attention to his footnotes, though, since that is where he notes problem lines and/or his own interpolations (in particular in the Bacchae).
I found his introductions not particularly useful, and the stage directions he inserted too heavy-handed and not allowing the reader to bring enough of his/her imagination to the text (not to mention that there aren't stage directions in the Greek). After reading one or two of the plays I simply skipped over them.
A final point is that the lack of line numbers makes these translations extremely hard to discuss or reference.
Overall, I enjoyed the translations themselves and thought they were well done, but I had some trouble with other aspects of the book.

This seems like a good edition to use in combination with others. Moses Hadas and John McLean have rendered literal prose translations that convey both the basic sense of the plays, and, in their intermittent lyrical prose sections, a good sense of the poetic spirit, I think. But the dramatic movement and power of a verse play are missing. Subsequent reading of a poet's translation would supply something of the original experience, tempered by a sense of how far it was from the original meaning, to the extent a modern reader can enter the mind of an ancient Greek spectator.

The plays themselves differ in appeal. I found 'Ion' (due to its irony), 'The Trojan Women,' and 'Iphegenia among the Taurians' to be the three plays I want to pursue. I found them the most interesting of Euripides explorations of the role of the gods. But I happen to have a translation of 'Medea' by Robin Robertson, one of my favorite poets, so I will start by seeing what he has made of this very Greek tragedy.

The biggest drawback to this edition is its minimalist presentation. It was obviously intended as a budget-friendly compilation. The general introduction by Hadas is good, but each play has only a page of introduction, and essentially no notes.