translation, coming off the back of Anne Carson's An Oresteia was kind of tough to read, I know Carson's translations often cop a lot of slack for being too modern and thus taking the reader out of the story, but I dunno, I really enjoy her take.
John Davie's translation kind of hurt my head to read,
I enjoyed the stories, and learning more about Euripidean tragedy, but overall I was kind of meh about it, Usually when I read plays I like to think about the staging and how lines would be read, but because of the archaic and direct nature of the translation, this was kind of impossible to do with any modern ideas this, also stems from the fact that Greek plays were performed in big stadiums, where actions had to be narrated because the audience often couldn't see well what was going on, so the dialogue is pretty expository.
Towards the end of every play I could feel myself wanting to count how many pages were left until the next one, which sucked, because I really wanted to enjoy these.
My favourite plays were Hecabe and Elektra, Maybe because more of Euripides work is preserved, a lot of it seems more underwhelming, his previous set of plays were redeemed by the powerful works of Medea and Hippolytus but that seems lacking in this set.
Andromache is comme si comme ca, little to fault but not of any particular merit,
Hecabe is more interesting, continuing the theme of Trojan suffering but instead of the passive, lamenting character of Andromache we have the active, lamenting character of Hecabe.
In Euripidean fashion we have a shocking ending which is morally ambiguous but at least makes the play interesting, nevertheless it doesn't generate the uncomfortability that Medea achieved.
The Suppliant Women is the peak of Euripides 'debate plays' which seems to act one of Plato's dialogues with a more epic setting, Readers may find the long meditations of democracy v, monarchy and the boundaries of just war an annoying distraction from what should be essentially a story, but the conversations are deep enough to merit reading,
Electra is clearly a parody of Aeschylus' 'The Suppliants', covering the same plot, Of course, Euripides uses this to subvert mythology, making Electra annoying instead of pious, Orestes somewhat cowardly and attempts to rehabilitate Clytemnestra, This subversion is more banal than thought provoking and unnecessary because Aeschylus already had powerfully dealt with the morality of matricide in his Oresteia,
The Trojan Women seems to be an exercise in being as miserable as possible, merely describing tragic events and having the Trojan Women lament them, This play may have been relevant in the context of the contemporary Peloponnesian War and the war crimes of Athens but it lacks a lot of depth, Beautifully written and devastating Quality Rating: Five Stars
Enjoyment Rating: Four Stars
Now that I've read a collection of plays by the three tragedians I can say pretty confidently that Aeschylus has the most elaborate writing, Sophocles has the most exciting stories, but Euripides is the best allrounder.
While I didn't enjoy The Suppliants in this collection, all the other plays were engaging and interesting, Euripides has a slightly stronger focus on women which stood out to me, though still very much in the style of the time it's nice to see classical female characters explored, but he isn't going to be winning any awards for being especially progressive.
One thing I would say was that the ordering of the plays was a little strange if you aren't familiar with the mythos I assume it's done by chronological date of when they were written, but the play that explains the circumstances surrounding every other individual play The Trojan Women is put right at the end.
If you hadn't already learnt about the exposition of Troy this might make the collection a bit less accessible, I liked the Sophocles version best, but this one was good as well, It's interesting to see how the same story is retold in different ways along time until the latest Eugene O'Neill version, They all have so many little differences and so much in common at the same time, There could even be a current version of Electra! alternate cover for ISBN:
Euripides, wrote Aristotle, is the most intensely tragic of all the poets, In his questioning attitude to traditional pieties, disconcerting shifts of sympathy, disturbingly eloquent evil characters amp acute insight into destructive passion, he's also the most strikingly modern of ancient authors.
Written in the period of, during the fierce struggle for supremacy between Athens amp Sparta, these five plays are haunted by the horrors of war amp its particular impact on women.
Only the Suppliants, with its extended debate on democracy amp monarchy, can be seen as a patriotic piece, The Trojan Women is perhaps the greatest of all antiwar dramas Andromache shows the ferocious clash between the wife amp concubine of Achilles son Neoptolemos while Hecabe reveals how hatred can drive a victim
to an appalling act of cruelty.
Electra develops amp parodies Aeschylus treatment of the same story, in which the heroine amp her brother Orestes commit matricide to avenge their father Agamemnon, As always, Euripides presents the heroic figures of mythology as recognizable, often very fallible, humans, these guys really need to take a chill pill when it comes to revenge,rounded up
RTC Running through these plays, composed in the provided chronology if not contiguously, is woe of defeat, In each are the protagonists in almost every case women of a defeated caste or faction, suffering under a victorious force, And in most cases this subjugating antagonist is Greek, while the woebegone protagonists are Asian, Perhaps Euripides was foreseeing the decline of his native Athens or at the least finding some mind for its many victims in warfare, Only Suppliant Women seems, of this collection, to not resort entirely to misery and yet even here is a sudden tragedy appended to the back of the play, as though to ensure no theatre of warfare is prosecuted bloodlessly.
Contemporary incident may, in other cases, degrade the artistic material, Euripides prejudice against Sparta incurs frequently, especially in Andromache, sometimes declining into long, slanderous monologues that seem at most tertiary to the subject of the play at hand.
Menelaus becomes a fool for being a Spartan, little more, But with these digressions comes also Euripides tendency for sophistry soon after the Spartans are censured in Andromache, he diverts into an analysis of to whom victory belongs, and on whom responsibility lies.
This topsyturvy respin of the Trojan war reaches its acme in Trojan Women, in which Cassandra is glad to be made Agamemnons concubine knowing it will result in the doom of him and his house it is here that the Greek victory becomes, in the largeness of time, a Greek defeat.
More directly to this point the immediate and gruelling regret felt by Orestes and Electra following the murder of their Spartan mother or the crude antipathy spat by a blind Polymestor, on whom revenge becomes especially bleak.
The closing image of Trojan Women closes out this apparentcycle poetically: the blazing carcase of Troy, disappearing within a swell of smoke, Wiped from the very earth, its people scattered, its heroes lain low, andromache
hecabe
suppliant women
electra
trojan women My favourite in this collection is Andromache, Davie is a great translator for ancient plays, Why anyone would waste time with modern TV drama when he/she could be reading Euripides is beyond my comprehension, A MASTER, a superb feminist, and a man far ahead of his time in terms of comprehending the insanity of war and/or the blind faith that tends to spawn it.
I only read Electra I dont know if its the translation but this wasnt very interesting or engaging to me, I know its a classic Greek tragedy but I guess it just wasnt for me, read others that were way better, General Introduction amp Notes
Note on the Text amp Further Reading
Chronological Table
Translator's Note
Preface to Andromache
Andromache
Preface to Hecabe
Hecabe
Preface to Suppliant Women
Suppliant Women
Preface to Electra
Electra
Preface to Trojan Women
Trojan Women
Notes
Bibliography
Glossary of Mythological and Geographical Names "A womans heart is a jealous thing.
" from Andromache
A collection ofplays by Euripides, one of the greatest ancient playwrights, Andromache and Trojan Woman are both such superb pieces of literature, I can't believe none of these plays was every required reading in any of my history classes, even in college and I was a History major can almost a year.
Everyone should make a point to read at least one play by Euripides during their life, if only to see his writing compared to other ancient playwrights, Read Electra, Suppliant Women, and Hecubafor a class, This is a great translation, and Euripides' work is wonderful,.
take off suppliant women and i would have finished this a month ago Only read Electra for uni, . . but will be revisiting. "it is the lot of all men to pay the debt of death"
"wisdom lies in recognizing the moment not to act" pains me to say it ampak za nekatere pisce sem vesela, da so mrtvi.
no offense ampak to me je najbolj spominjalo na igre, ki so jih meli v Braavosu v GOT, in to mislim na najslabsi nacin
komaj prebrala, iskreno, res sem se mucila Sofoklej, na primer, v primerjavi ful berljiv
pa tudi zelo questionable pogledi tip si zasluzi nagrado in hvalo, ker ni posilil mlade punce, ko "bi jo lahko"
evripid NE pocivaj v miru, upam, da te je vsaka beseda, ki sem jo prebrala, obrnila v grobu As a fan of Euripides Medea, I was eager to read more of his tragedies, and this opportunity arose as part of my Classical Studies course, during which I wrote an essay on Trojan Women and Hecabe.
I really enjoyed this book, It was interesting to read them for what they are in my own leisure but also to think about them critically and consider them through an academic lens.
All five plays focus predominantly on women, a rare feature of other playwrights work, and as such gender plays a crucial role in the narrative, Other themes of duty and obligation are also prevalent and they teach us much about the importance of honouring the dead and conducting appropriate burial rites, These tragedies are often seen as grim, bleak, and protestations of war, but theyre so much more than that and are far too interesting to reduce them in such simplistic ways.
My ranking of the plays:
, Trojan Women
. Andromache
. Hecabe
. Electra
. Suppliant Women Euripides knew what he did when he wrote these plays, The Trojan women made me cry and the others have interesting perspectives of well known female characters, Such a fantastic selection of great tragedies!!! The tragedies included in this book are Masterpieces, and the translation was so readable and beautiful, The Trojan Women is one of my alltime favourite tragedies, I highly recommend. Greek: sitelink Ευριπίδης Euripides Ancient Greek: Εὐριπίδης ca,BCBC was the last of the three great tragedians of classical Athens the other two being Aeschylus and Sophocles, Ancient scholars thought that Euripides had written ninety five plays, although four of those were probably written by Critias, Eighteen of Euripides plays have survived complete, It is now widely believed that what was thought to be a nineteenth, Rhesus, was probably not by Euripides, Fragments, some substantial, of most of the other plays also survive, More of his plays have survived than those of Aeschylus and Sophocles together, partly because of the chance preservation of a manuscript that was probably part of a complete collection of his works in alp Greek: sitelink Ευριπίδης Euripides Ancient Greek: Εὐριπίδης ca.
BCBC was the last of the three great tragedians of classical Athens the other two being Aeschylus and Sophocles, Ancient scholars thought that Euripides had written ninety five plays, although four of those were probably written by Critias, Eighteen of Euripides' plays have survived complete, It is now widely believed that what was thought to be a nineteenth, Rhesus, was probably not by Euripides, Fragments, some substantial, of most of the other plays also survive, More of his plays have survived than those of Aeschylus and Sophocles together, partly because of the chance preservation of a manuscript that was probably part of a complete collection of his works in alphabetical order.
sitelink sitelink.