Finished this yesterday and RTC of each play breakdown and my thoughts on each.
Overall, this was one of the most enjoyable compilation of Euripides plays with most of the plays rating a 4 or 4.5****

Rtc

What is more terrible - a world with vengeful gods, or a world without them?

I wrote a review for each play here

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Euripides not as good as Sophocles but he's better than Aeschylus.

I didn't like the translation, all other old Greek plays i've read were translated better than those ones.

Phoenician Women - 3/5
Orestes - 4/5
The Bacchae - 5/5
Iphigenia at Aulis - 3/5
Rhesus - 2/5

Okay, I think it's so incredible how Euripides' work has been codified into text, translated, and interpreted, and still remain interesting. I would genuinely kill to see any of these plays as, well, a play, and I found myself genuinely entertained the entire time reading this book. It gives an incredibly interesting perspective into a lost culture, as well as how some of these mythological figures and their stories have, and continue to interact with the western and global literary canon. Understanding the format of these plays, with the chorus and all, can be slightly complicated if you don't have an understanding of its function in ancient drama, but it's all good fun really. I'd definitely recommend this to anyone thinking about reading any works from this time period.

The Bacchae, in all of its ancient Greek wisdom, is quite possibly one of the earliest stories of a youth movement. Dionysus, god of wine and ecstasy, is on a quest to bring liberation to the people of Thebes, contrary to the goal of the antagonist Pentheus, who is the reigning king. Pentheus' goal is to dominate the masses and above all else censor and control everything which goes on in his kingdom. Disguised as a peasant, Dionysus begins telling tales of liberation and dancing to the people of Thebes, and recruits a significant following. When Pentheus catches wind of this, he begins doing everything in his power to snuff this movement out and make his people loyal to him again. During this process, Pentheus goes into the mountains to spy on the all female group of Dionysian-possessed followers called the Maenads, who would dance in ecstasy and express their freedom around the clock. What Pentheus didn't know, however, was that the moment he reached the group he sought to spy on, he would be possessed by Dionysus and ultimately ripped apart by the Maenads, one of which being his mother. If you take a closer look at this scenario, while extreme, it reflects the very common radical ideology which accompanies youth movements. For instance, take the hippie movement of the 60s and 70s. Students would engage in peaceful protest, throw rocks at policemen, and burn tires all in the name of defying a broken establishment. This cutthroat aspect of the hippie movement is paralleled in the Bacchae, with extreme occurrences of murder and violence in the name of freedom. The play ends with Dionysus banishing the remaining nonbelievers, and liberation getting a grip on Thebes. Regardless of all of its complications and implications, societies will always opt for freedom and expression over oppression.

easily 5⭐️
euripides’ dramatic and heart-wrenching plots combined with davies’ brilliant and easy to read translation makes me forget that this was something written over a thousand years ago and not something more modern.
my favourite play was either orestes or iphigenia at aulis, i love the drama honestly, all of these plays are amazing.

Pretty enjoyable, really. The translation was very readable and while it felt a little old-fashioned, when you've got a first published date with a minus, that's kind of to be expected.
The notes throughout I found exceptionally useful - I know a bit about the Greeks but haven't studied Classics, so it was great to get a bit of context to the references and some explanation on some of the points I would otherwise have missed. The introductory notes to each play (and the whole book) was also great for giving context and an explanation of the background of each of them, and helped me understand much more than I otherwise would've.
On the plays themselves - I've obviously heard the term Greek tragedy, and I was at least vaguely aware of some of the stories contained within, so I knew they weren't going to be happy reading. I was surprised by how dark a lot of them were, thiugh, and how graphic - "tossing a piece of his flesh up and down like a ball" is some pretty horrific imagery! They were all pretty engaging because of this, although as I said some bits felt a bit old-fashioned, such as the changes of heart so quickly and the willingness to sacrifice yourself or your loved ones. It's a great insight into the Greek times, though, and what people though of (at least of the Heroic age, and what the "current" Greeks thought of it).
I initially read this for research into the thyrsus, as I want a tattoo of one, and wanted some primary sources. It doesn't have much of that, but I think I got some idea of what I want from it. What I got more was a desire to read more real Greek literature - these were fun, and I enjoyed them! I've realised that I don't need a modern retelling, or a retelling from another point of view: I can just read the (translated) original!
Here's hoping Bristol Uni library has more Euripides!

The plays are weird in that they sometimes feel overly fast in pace, but the introduction by Vellacott helped to nonetheless appreciate the irony and satire Euripedes may have been going for. It helped make the plays more enjoyable, as the lack of self awareness of characters thus became jokes, which they may not have appeared as so clearly without the explanations this copy gives. Ion is great for giving you an idea of the anticlimax and lack of catharsis to expect in Euripides’ plays (or at least what I came to feel at the end of each play). The chorus can drag on a bit in places unless their lines are reread with care in search for a solid understanding of what they’re going on about. I know that sounds obvious but I feel it is important to say as the brief pace of the plays can make the bits where the chorus effectively act as scene transitions feel uninteresting.

I've only read the first two plays: Iphigenia Among the Saurians and Bacchae for a classical read a long.

I enjoyed both. I was following the notes that Norwood supplied with this edition and learnt so much from this. For example I learnt from the notes, not from the plays, how my starting Gemini came to be in myth thanks to the Greeks and many other features of the Ancient Greeks myths that love to explore. I really enjoyed having the notes alongside it so I definitely recommend getting this edition if you are going to read any of the plays.

Euripides is a really good playwright. His plays reveal the myths and legends of the gods and aspects of the ancient greeks everyday. I enjoyed the characters and how they were formed. They were given a form of backstory, but not too much to make us feel completely for them. I liked the distance it gave us. I just really like Ancient Greek theatre. Need to read more.

I'm going to come back to this one for sure but I want to do it when I have a few days off again to just really give it time to analyse, study and explore it. It took me 4 days to get through the first two plays. That was about 83 pages for the plays and 30 pages for the notes. But I was constantly flipping back and forth and rereading sections that I thought were brilliant.

Plus I found a new favourite quote: "Mere cleverness is not wisdom".

The Bacchae

Dionysus, the god of wine, prophecy, religious ecstasy, and fertility return to his birthplace in Thebes in order to clear his mother's name and to punish the insolent city-state for refusing to allow people to worship him. The background to his return is presented in the prologue, in which Dionysus tells the story of his mother, Semele, once a princess in the royal Theban house of Cadmus. She had an affair with Zeus, the king of the gods, and became pregnant.

As revenge, Zeus's jealous wife Hera tricked Semele into asking Zeus to appear in his divine form. Zeus, too powerful for a mortal to behold, emerged from the sky as a bolt of lightning and burnt Semele to a cinder. He managed, however, to rescue his unborn son Dionysus and stitched the baby into his thigh. Semele's family claimed that she had been struck by lightning for lying about Zeus and that her child, the product of an illicit human affair, had died with her, maligning her name and rejecting the young god Dionysus.

just read the bacchae!

very unhinged, fucking bonkers

book 3 for my drama & transgression: from prometheus to faust module