Euripides

Brian Swann

Peter Burian

Here, Peter Burian and Brian Swann recreate Euripides' The Phoenician Women, a play about the fateful history of the House of Laios following the tragic fall of Oedipus, King of Thebes. Their lively translation of this controversial play reveals the cohesion and taut organization of a complex dramatic work. Through the use of dramatic, fast-paced poetry - almost cinematic it its rapidity of tempo and metaphorical vividness - Burian and Swann capture the original spirit of Euripides' dramaabout the deeply and disturbingly ironic convergence of free will and fate. Presented with a critical introduction, stage directions, a glossary of mythical Greek names and terms, and a commentary on difficult passages, this edition of The Phoenician Women makes a controversial tragedy accessible to the modern reader.

The Phoenician Women

The Helen of this play never goes to Troy, but is carried to Egypt, where she remains during and after the Trojan War, waiting faithfully for her husband Menelaus to rescue her. Meanwhile, Helen of Troy - a mere phantom fashioned by the gods - has blighted the real Helen's life with undeserved hatred, since she cannot escape blame for destruction and death in which she had no part, or rather a part in name only. In Euripides' hands this premise suggests a world in which nothing is precisely what it seems. Helen plays with the confusion of appearance and reality in ways that are by turns amusing and disturbing, playful and full of serious quandaries. Whether understood as tragedy or (as some critics prefer) something more like philosophical divertissement or romantic comedy, Helen has increasingly been recognized as an intellectually challenging and emotionally satisfying dramatic masterpiece.

Helen

Alan Shapiro

This volume collects Euripides' Electra, an exciting story of vengeance that counterposes suspense and horror with comic realism; Orestes, the tragedy of a young man who kills his mother to avenge her murder of his father; Iphigenia in Tauris, a delicately written and beautifully contrived Euripidean "romance"; and Iphigeneia at Aulis, a compelling look at the devastating consequence of "man's inhumanity to man." This volume reprints the informative introductions and notes of the original editions, and adds a single combined glossary and Greek line numbers.

The Complete Euripides Volume II Electra and Other Plays

Aeschylus

Peter Burian and Alan Shapiro's masterful translation of The Oresteia, originally published in 2003, is being repackaged for the collected volumes in the Greek Tragedy in New Translations series. Burian will add Greek line numbers and update the introduction and bibliography.

Volume I: The Oresteia

The Complete Aeschylus

Based on the conviction that only translators who write poetry themselves can best re-create the celebrated and timeless tragedies of Aeschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides, the Greek Tragedy in New Translations series offers new translations that go beyond the literal meaning of the Greek in order to evoke the poetry of the originals. The tragedies collected here were originally available as single volumes. This new collection retains the informative introductions and explanatory notes of the original editions, with Greek line numbers and a single combined glossary added for easy reference. This volume collects for the first time three of Sophocles most moving tragedies, all set in mythical Thebes: Oedipus the King, perhaps the most powerful of all Greek tragedies; Oedipus at Colonus, a story that reveals the reversals and paradoxes that define moral life; and Antigone, a touchstone of thinking about human conflict and human tragedy, the role of the divine in human life, and the degree to which men and women are the creators of their own destiny.

Volume I: The Theban Plays

The Complete Sophocles

Based on the conviction that only translators who write poetry themselves can best re-create the celebrated and timeless tragedies of Aeschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides, the Greek Tragedy in New Translations series offers new translations that go beyond the literal meaning of the Greek in order to evoke the poetry of the originals. The tragedies collected here were originally available as single volumes. This new collection retains the informative introductions and explanatory notes of the original editions, with Greek line numbers and a single combined glossary added for easy reference. The volume collects Euripides' Electra, an exciting story of vengence that counterposes suspense and horror with comic realism; Orestes, the tragedy of a young man who kills his mother to avenge her murder of his father; Iphigenia in Tauris, a delicately written and beautifully contrived Euripidean "romance"; and Iphigenia at Aulis, a compelling look at the devastating consequence of "man's inhumanity to man."

Volume II: Iphigenia in Tauris and Other Plays

The Complete Euripides

Jacques A. Bromberg

A COMPANION TO AESCHYLUS In A Companion to Aeschylus, a team of eminent Aeschyleans and brilliant younger scholars delivers an insightful and original multi-authored examination—the first comprehensive one in English—of the works of the earliest surviving Greek tragedian. This book explores Aeschylean drama, and its theatrical, historical, philosophical, religious, and socio-political contexts, as well as the receptions and influence of Aeschylus from antiquity to the present day. This companion offers readers thorough examinations of Aeschylus as a product of his time, including his place in the early years of the Athenian democracy and his immediate and ongoing impact on tragedy. It also provides comprehensive explorations of all the surviving plays, including Prometheus Bound, which many scholars have concluded is not by Aeschylus. A Companion to Aeschylus is an ideal resource for students encountering the work of Aeschylus for the first time as well as more advanced scholars seeking incisive treatment of his individual works, their cultural context and their enduring significance. Written in an accessible format, with the Greek translated into English and technical terminology avoided as much as possible, the book belongs in the library of anyone looking for a fresh and authoritative account of works of continuing interest and importance to readers and theatre-goers alike.

A Companion to Aeschylus

Jenny Strauss Clay

Gregson Davis

This book collects essays and other contributions by colleagues, students, and friends of the late Diskin Clay, reflecting the unusually broad range of his interests. Clay’s work in ancient philosophy, and particularly in Epicurus and Epicureanism and in Plato, is reflected chapters on Epicurean concerns by André Laks, David Sedley and Martin Ferguson Smith, as well as Jed Atkins on Lucretius and Leo Strauss; Michael Erler contributes a chapter on Plato. James Lesher discusses Xenophanes and Sophocles, and Aryeh Kosman contributes a jeu d’esprit on the obscure Pythagorean Ameinias. Greek cultural history finds multidisciplinary treatment in Rebecca Sinos’s study of Archilochus’ Heros and the Parian Relief, Frank Romer’s mythographic essay on Aphrodite’s origins and archaic mythopoieia more generally, and Kyriakos Tsantsanoglou’s explication of Callimachus’s kenning of Mt. Athos as "ox-piercing spit of your mother Arsinoe." More purely literary interests are pursued in chapters on ancient Greek (Joseph Russo on Homer, Dirk Obbink on Sappho), Latin (Jenny Strauss Clay and Gregson Davis on Horace), and post-classical poetry (Helen Hadzichronoglou on Cavafy, John Miller on Robert Pinsky and Ovid). Peter Burian contributes an essay on the possibility and impossibility of translating Aeschylus. In addition to these essays, two original poems (Rosanna Warren and Jeffrey Carson) and two pairs of translations (from Horace by Davis and from Foscolo by Burian) recognize Clay’s own activity as poet and translator. The volume begins with an Introduction discussing Clay’s life and work, and concludes with a bibliography of Clay’s publications.

Studies in Ancient Philosophy, History, and Literature

Euphrosyne

Based on the conviction that only translators who write poetry themselves can best re-create the celebrated and timeless tragedies of Aeschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides, the Greek Tragedy in New Translations series offers new translations that go beyond the literal meaning of the Greek in order to evoke the poetry of the originals. The tragedies collected here were originally available as single volumes. This new collection retains the informative introductions and explanatory notes of the original editions, with Greek line numbers and a single combined glossary added for easy reference. This volume collects Euripides' Andromache, a play that challenges the concept of tragic character and transforms expectations of tragic structure; Hecuba, a powerful story of the unjustifiable sacrifice of Hecuba's daughter and the consequent destruction of Hecuba's character; Trojan Women, a particularly intense account of human suffering and uncertainty; and Rhesos, the story of a futile quest for knowledge.

Volume I: Trojan Women and Other Plays

Based on the conviction that only translators who write poetry themselves can properly re-create the celebrated and timeless tragedies of Aeschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides, the Greek Tragedy in New Translations series offers new translations that go beyond the literal meaning of the Greek in order to evoke the poetry of the originals.This volume collects Euipides' Alcestis (translated by William Arrowsmith), a subtle drama about Alcestis and her husband Admetos, which is the oldest surviving work by the dramatist; Medea (Michael Collier and Georgia Machemer), a moving vengeance story and an excellent example of the prominence and complexity that Euripides gave to female characters; Helen (Peter Burian), a genre breaking play based on the myth of Helen in Egypt; and Cyclops (Heather McHugh and David Konstan), a highly lyrical drama based on a celebrated episode from the Odyssey. This volume retains the informative introductions and explanatory notes of the original editions and adds a single combined glossary and Greek line numbers.

Volume V: Medea and Other Plays

The Complete Euripides:Volume V: Medea and Other Plays

The Greek Tragedy in New Translations series is based on the conviction that only translators who write poetry themselves, or who work in collaboration with poets, can properly re-create the celebrated and timeless tragedies of the great Greek writers. These new translations are more than faithful to the original text, going beyond the literal meaning in order to evoke the poetic intensity and rich metaphorical texture of the Greek language. The Trojan Women describes with unparalleledintensity the horrific brutality that both women and children undergo at the end of the Trojan War, but in the end it is a play that insists on the victory of spirit amid the horrors created by gods and men. Poet and English professor Alan Shapiro, together with noted Greek scholar, translator, and Classics professor Peter Burian, bring into their own words the Aeschylean vision of a world fraught with spiritual and political tensions, disordered by an irrational war.

Trojan Women

Based on the conviction that only translators who write poetry themselves can properly re-create the celebrated and timeless tragedies of Aeschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides, the Greek Tragedy in New Translations series offers new translations that go beyond the literal meaning of the Greek in order to evoke the poetry of the originals. This volume collects Euripides' Andromache (translated by Susan Stewart and Wesley D. Smith), a play that challenges the concept of tragic character and transforms expectations of tragic structure; Hecuba (Janet Lembke and Kenneth J. Reckford), a powerful story of the unjustifiable sacrifice of Hecuba's daughter and the consequent destruction of Hecuba's character; Trojan Women (Peter Burian and Alan Shapiro), a particularly intense account of human suffering and uncertainty; and Rhesos (Richard Emil Braun), the story of a futile quest for knowledge. This volume retains the informative introductions and explanatory notes of the original editions and adds a single combined glossary and Greek line numbers.

The Complete Euripides Volume I Trojan Women and Other Plays

This volume collects Hippolytos, a dramatic interpretation of the tragedy of Phaidra; Suppliant Women, a powerful examination of the competing poles of the human psyche; Ion a complex enactment of the changing relations between the human and divine orders; and The Children of Herakles, a descriptive tale of the descendants of Herakles and their journey home. The book retains the informative introductions and explanatory notes of the original editions and adds a single combined glossary and Greek line numbers.

Peter Burian

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