Product Description

Through their sheer range, daring innovation, flawed but eloquent characters and intriguing plots, the plays of Euripides have shocked and stimulated audiences since the fifth century BC. Phoenician Women portrays the rival sons of King Oedipus and their mother’s doomed attempts at reconciliation, while Orestes shows a son ravaged with guilt after the vengeful murder of his mother. In the Bacchae, a king mistreats a newcomer to his land, little knowing that he is the god Dionysus disguised as a mortal, while in Iphigenia at Aulis, the Greek leaders take the horrific decision to sacrifice a princess to gain favour from the gods in their mission to Troy. Finally, the Rhesus depicts a world of espionage between the warring Greek and Trojan camps.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #80315 in Books
• Published on: 2006-01-26
• Original language: Greek
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 432 pages

Book Information
Euripides (c. 484--406 BC) was the most controversial of the three great Greek tragedians and the most modern.

His major themes--religious scepticism, the injustices suffered by women and the destructive folly of war--are issues still vitally important today. Ion, a play more concerned with character than ideas, deals with the problem of reconciling religious faith with the facts of human life. The Women of Troy poignantly reveals the horror of war, a theme also woven into the comedy Helen, in which Euripides pleasantly parodies himself. The Bacchae, his last surviving tragedy and masterpiece, explores the psychology of mass violence. Above all, as these four plays demonstrate, Euripides sought to understand the nature of the human soul and human society. As Philip Vellacott states in his introduction, through reading these dramas we enter a world ‘whose mysteries are infinite because they are the simple ones of common human experience’.

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About the Author
EURIPIDES (C.484-406 B.C.) was one of the three great tragedians of classical Athens, along with Aeschylus and Sophocles; he is the youngest of the three. He is believed to have written 92 dramas, but only 19 of them are now known. John Davie is Head of Classics at St Paul's School in London. Richard Rutherford is Tutor in Greek and Latin Literature at Christ Church, Oxford.

Customer Reviews

Essential
The Bacchae and Iphigenia in Aulis are esssential, and The Phoenician Women is of some interest (in my opinion). I liked the translation; I prefer formal prose to blank verse. The notes and the introductory material are also very useful.

It's not Euripides' fault that I prefer Aeschylus and Sophocles!