Electra and Other Plays

The plays are all amazing and the translation is really good. I reduced one start because of some typos and I think it's annoying to have the title of the play printed on every page at the top, almost at the spot where the speak goes. If the play is named after a person (3/4 of these plays are) it can be off-putting. That being said, the finale of Women of Trachis (to give an example) is PHENOMENALLY translated. Really channeled the fun of that scene there. Whole play is awesome of course, they all are

I run The Independent Theatre Workshop in Dublin and bought this as some of my Speech & Drama students are studying Greek Drama at the moment. I needed a copy of AJAX and this also has ELECTRA in it (which I already have in a translation by Frank McGuinness) this translation is very accessible for my students and it is great for them to see a different translation - it really makes it easier to follow! Also arrived in AS NEW condition and was extremely reasonably priced as a pre owned book!

Greek tragedy is an art form unparalleled in any other culture. I believe its particular form is bound up with the fact that the Greeks were the first Western civilization with the intuition that the world is fundamentally reasonable. That is, that the reasoning processes in men can uncover an explanation for all, or much, of the world’s phenomena. But this Greek optimism, this almost intoxication with reason, ran aground in confronting the question of human suffering. Why if everything is in the power of Zeus does he allow his sons and daughters to suffer? Why do men seem to exhibit more compassion towards the sufferer than the gods? And so, at one of their greatest festivals, the Athenians gathered to witness the retelling of the stories about their mythic ancestors in tragic form and thus to ponder that existential questioning of human suffering. To my knowledge, no Greek philosopher ever confronted this question directly and so it lay in the hands of the tragedians to somehow offer an answer that would accord with the reasonableness of the world, the benevolence of the gods and the sometimes painful aspect of the human predicament . In the modern world we can see of course that suffering is part of the life of all animals. That pain itself is an evolutionary adaption necessary to increase our chances of survival. But in the grips of immense suffering, which the modern world has seen so much of, how many people turn to Darwinian explanations and how many continue to follow the dramatic path first carved by the tragedians? Supreme examples of literature, the Greek tragedies should be part of any intellectual’s library. These retellings of ancient stories continue to inspire as one faces the decidely unintellectual question as to why human life must be full of so much pain and suffering. Highly recommended for all readers who share the conviction that life is reasonable but that some phenomena can also be explored in a dramatic setting.

Considered the greatest Athenian dramatist of his time, Sopochles won first place 21 times and is attributed 123 plays to his name. However, only 7 of those have fully survived, making it each an important treasure. In this edition you will find a very accurate and beautiful translation of Sopochles, with fantastic notes as well. Highly recommended.

Sophocles needs no comment. The translation is highly readable--admittedly I have no other comparison in the English language. The introductions by both Pat Easterling and David Raeburn are instructive--Raeburn's hands-on experience in performing most of the pieces adds a welcome layer of practical wisdom that brings Sophocles alive for the modern reader. I miss the homerotic aspect of Sophocles in the commentary, but that's perhaps a matter of taste (in my view, his homosexuality cannot be disconnected from his works; at least "Philoctetes" is homerotic through and through).