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Very important tragedies, best translation, although I prefer the original one in ancient Greek!
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Euripides II: The Cyclops / Heracles / Iphigenia in Tauris / Helen
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This volume contains the following tragedies by Euripides:
1. The Cyclops, translated and with an introduction by William Arrowsmith
2. Heracles, translated and with an introduction by William Arrowsmith
3. Iphigenia in Tauris, translated by Witter Bynner and with an introduction by Richmond Lattimore
4. Helen, translated and with an introduction by William Arrowsmith
1. The Cyclops, translated and with an introduction by William Arrowsmith
2. Heracles, translated and with an introduction by William Arrowsmith
3. Iphigenia in Tauris, translated by Witter Bynner and with an introduction by Richmond Lattimore
4. Helen, translated and with an introduction by William Arrowsmith
In nine paperback volumes, the Grene and Lattimore editions offer the most comprehensive selection of the Greek tragedies available in English. Over the years these authoritative, critically acclaimed editions have been the preferred choice of over three million readers for personal libraries and individual study as well as for classroom use.
264 pages, Paperback
First published January 1,1956
This edition
- Format
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264 pages, Paperback
- Published
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January 1, 1969 by Univ of Chicago Pr
- ISBN
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9780226307817
- ASIN
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B0019QHIEA
- Language
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English
About the author
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Euripides (Greek: Ευριπίδης) (ca. 480 BC–406 BC) was a tragedian of classical Athens. Along with Aeschylus and Sophocles, he is one of the three ancient Greek tragedians for whom any plays have survived in full. Some ancient scholars attributed ninety-five plays to him, but the Suda says it was ninety-two at most. Of these, eighteen or nineteen have survived more or less complete (Rhesus is suspect). There are many fragments (some substantial) of most of his other plays. More of his plays have survived intact than those of Aeschylus and Sophocles together, partly because his popularity grew as theirs declined—he became, in the Hellenistic Age, a cornerstone of ancient literary education, along with Homer, Demosthenes, and Menander.
Euripides is identified with theatrical innovations that have profoundly influenced drama down to modern times, especially in the representation of traditional, mythical heroes as ordinary people in extraordinary circumstances. This new approach led him to pioneer developments that later writers adapted to comedy, some of which are characteristic of romance. He also became "the most tragic of poets", focusing on the inner lives and motives of his characters in a way previously unknown. He was "the creator of ... that cage which is the theatre of William Shakespeare's Othello, Jean Racine's Phèdre, of Henrik Ibsen and August Strindberg," in which "imprisoned men and women destroy each other by the intensity of their loves and hates". But he was also the literary ancestor of comic dramatists as diverse as Menander and George Bernard Shaw.
His contemporaries associated him with Socrates as a leader of a decadent intellectualism. Both were frequently lampooned by comic poets such as Aristophanes. Socrates was eventually put on trial and executed as a corrupting influence. Ancient biographies hold that Euripides chose a voluntary exile in old age, dying in Macedonia, but recent scholarship casts doubt on these sources.
Euripides is identified with theatrical innovations that have profoundly influenced drama down to modern times, especially in the representation of traditional, mythical heroes as ordinary people in extraordinary circumstances. This new approach led him to pioneer developments that later writers adapted to comedy, some of which are characteristic of romance. He also became "the most tragic of poets", focusing on the inner lives and motives of his characters in a way previously unknown. He was "the creator of ... that cage which is the theatre of William Shakespeare's Othello, Jean Racine's Phèdre, of Henrik Ibsen and August Strindberg," in which "imprisoned men and women destroy each other by the intensity of their loves and hates". But he was also the literary ancestor of comic dramatists as diverse as Menander and George Bernard Shaw.
His contemporaries associated him with Socrates as a leader of a decadent intellectualism. Both were frequently lampooned by comic poets such as Aristophanes. Socrates was eventually put on trial and executed as a corrupting influence. Ancient biographies hold that Euripides chose a voluntary exile in old age, dying in Macedonia, but recent scholarship casts doubt on these sources.
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satyrs be h*rny
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It's an interesting read, don't get me wrong, but I was not what I was expecting nor hoping for in this book. Although, I did find his interpretation of Helen quite refreshing.
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The Cyclops was really funny.
Heracles is definitely my favorite here ♥️
and Iphigenia, boi,
Heracles is definitely my favorite here ♥️
and Iphigenia, boi,
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This collection of oddities elbowed its way into the queue because I was getting ready for another excellent Theater of War production, n n Hercules in Pennsylvanian n. Bryan Doerries, the Theater of War director and translator, made choices in his translation of this wrenching drama about how the greatest Greek hero saves his family and then destroys it in fit of madness in order to make us think about gun violence. Heracles is undone by what we would call mental illness (it's a lot more personal than that in the Greek mindscape, to be certain, a madness inflicted by Hera, H's implacable divine namesake and foe), but also by the deadly ease and power of the can't-miss bow that Doerries' translates as his "invincible weapon." Some of the Theater of War productions have been hit and miss, but this, like their Oedipus, was extremely powerful. The play itself is very evocative of Ajax: both are bifurcated narratives in which a physically indomitable but slightly simple hero is destroyed by delusions and a childlike inability to reign in ordinary frustration and disappointment. I very much liked the value placed on friendship and loyalty by this play, and I have already found the speech by Theseus about despair being for cowards to be personally useful.
Heracles was the only real tragedy on offer in this volume. The Cyclops, which depicts the blinding of Polyphemus by Odysseus and his crew, is the only extant "satyr play. Every poet competing in the Dionysia would submit a trilogy complemented by a thematically-linked, bawdy comedy performed by horse-men wearing tails and exaggerated phalluses. The Cyclops is legitimately funny, which is far more than I can say for any of the Aristophanes that I've read. The incident in the Odyssey, while pathetic, is also funny. Quentin Tarantino and Guy Ritchie certainly didn't invent black comedy.
Helen and Iphigenia at Tauris are almost identical plays with the premise that a key figure in the Trojan War saga is actually whisked away from danger to safety in an exotic locale and is magical substitute is inserted in her place. An entirely guiltless Helen whiles away the war at a temple in Egypt and, after losing a decade of his life an putting lofty Ilion to the torch to get her back, he accepts her crazy story without a blink. It does kinda explain (well that, and the fact that she plies everyone with dope) the oddly convivial scene in the Odyssey when pseudo-Mentor and Telemachus visit Sparta. The Atreides brothers are clearly grudge-holders. I always wondered what Helen could possibly have said on the trip back to make Menelaus so well-disposed to her again.
Heracles was the only real tragedy on offer in this volume. The Cyclops, which depicts the blinding of Polyphemus by Odysseus and his crew, is the only extant "satyr play. Every poet competing in the Dionysia would submit a trilogy complemented by a thematically-linked, bawdy comedy performed by horse-men wearing tails and exaggerated phalluses. The Cyclops is legitimately funny, which is far more than I can say for any of the Aristophanes that I've read. The incident in the Odyssey, while pathetic, is also funny. Quentin Tarantino and Guy Ritchie certainly didn't invent black comedy.
Helen and Iphigenia at Tauris are almost identical plays with the premise that a key figure in the Trojan War saga is actually whisked away from danger to safety in an exotic locale and is magical substitute is inserted in her place. An entirely guiltless Helen whiles away the war at a temple in Egypt and, after losing a decade of his life an putting lofty Ilion to the torch to get her back, he accepts her crazy story without a blink. It does kinda explain (well that, and the fact that she plies everyone with dope) the oddly convivial scene in the Odyssey when pseudo-Mentor and Telemachus visit Sparta. The Atreides brothers are clearly grudge-holders. I always wondered what Helen could possibly have said on the trip back to make Menelaus so well-disposed to her again.
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Repeating myself, I know, but.... What can I say? All of the well-known Greek playwrights are important reading, both for their historical significance as well as the fact that they're excellent plays. They haven't remained famous for 2,400 years because they're not worthy of it.
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Heracles and Iphigenia slay, fuck Agamemnon
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Iphagenia in Taurus was worth reading, and it makes an interesting melodrama, not really a tragedy. This volume does contain the only Satyr play to survive complete from the three great Athenian tragedians.
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