Secure checkout · Free US shipping on orders over $50
In Orestes, the famous Greek tragic dramatist Euripides (c. 480 BC to 406 BC) revisits the bloody history of the House of Atreus and offers his very different vision of the reactions of Orestes and Electra to the death of their mother, Clytaemnestra, whom they have just murdered in order to avenge the killing of their father, Agamemnon.
Euripides’ play, a radical retelling of this old story, vigorously attacks the treatments of the same events by his predecessors, Aeschylus and Sophocles, and seems to suggest that the old myths cannot sustain those earlier visions of tragic heroism and metaphysical meaning. Here the conventional sources of appropriate behavior fail to produce nobility or justice: traditional heroes, like Menelaus, are cowards, the public assembly is fickle and easily swayed, and the gods are unjust and unreliable. The play is famous for its eventful plot and for the disagreements it has prompted about what it may be saying about Athenian life. Responses to it have ranged all the way from the claim that it is simply a theatrical piece without wider significance to the view that it is a cry of despair about the inadequacy of human beings to meet the complex and brutal demands of contemporary Athenian life.
Ian Johnston’s new translation remains faithful to the original Greek and offers a modern English poetic text which is particularly well suited to dramatic recitation or performance.
- Category
- Classics
- ISBN (softcover)
- 978-1-935238-94-2
- e-ISBN
- 978-1-935238-17-1
- Author
- Euripides
-
These new dramatic releases provide us once again with that powerful and direct style of translation for which Professor Johnston has become known. Students reading these translations will have no doubt of the passion and issues raised by the plays.
Princeton Professor Emerita.Elaine Fantham
-
Your translation is so much easier to understand than any other publication available. Even what we have read online has helped my son who is encountering this epic for his first time ever as a high school freshman.
-
It\'s the first semester for teaching Greek Drama at a new school. I\'ve look through translations and I like yours best.
Nashville, Tennessee -
Thank you so much for you e-text translations of Euripides and Aristophanes. I am home schooling my children in Lima, Peru where we cannot access English libraries. My daughter who is in tenth grade is reading through the classic literature... I thank you so much for providing a much clearer translation in a format that we can access.
Lima, Peru -
These new dramatic releases provide us once again with that powerful and direct style of translation for which Professor Johnston has become known. Students reading these translations will have no doubt of the passion and issues raised by the plays.
Princeton Professor Emerita.Elaine Fantham
-
Your translation is so much easier to understand than any other publication available. Even what we have read online has helped my son who is encountering this epic for his first time ever as a high school freshman.
-
It\\\'s the first semester for teaching Greek Drama at a new school. I\\\'ve look through translations and I like yours best.
Nashville, Tennessee -
Thank you so much for you e-text translations of Euripides and Aristophanes. I am home schooling my children in Lima, Peru where we cannot access English libraries. My daughter who is in tenth grade is reading through the classic literature... I thank you so much for providing a much clearer translation in a format that we can access.
Lima, Peru -
These new dramatic releases provide us once again with that powerful and direct style of translation for which Professor Johnston has become known. Students reading these translations will have no doubt of the passion and issues raised by the plays.
Princeton Professor Emerita.Elaine Fantham
-
Your translation is so much easier to understand than any other publication available. Even what we have read online has helped my son who is encountering this epic for his first time ever as a high school freshman.
-
It\\\'s the first semester for teaching Greek Drama at a new school. I\\\'ve look through translations and I like yours best.
Nashville, Tennessee -
Thank you so much for you e-text translations of Euripides and Aristophanes. I am home schooling my children in Lima, Peru where we cannot access English libraries. My daughter who is in tenth grade is reading through the classic literature... I thank you so much for providing a much clearer translation in a format that we can access.
Lima, Peru -
These new dramatic releases provide us once again with that powerful and direct style of translation for which Professor Johnston has become known. Students reading these translations will have no doubt of the passion and issues raised by the plays.
Princeton Professor Emerita.Elaine Fantham
-
Your translation is so much easier to understand than any other publication available. Even what we have read online has helped my son who is encountering this epic for his first time ever as a high school freshman.
-
It\\\\\\\'s the first semester for teaching Greek Drama at a new school. I\\\\\\\'ve look through translations and I like yours best.
Nashville, Tennessee -
Thank you so much for you e-text translations of Euripides and Aristophanes. I am home schooling my children in Lima, Peru where we cannot access English libraries. My daughter who is in tenth grade is reading through the classic literature... I thank you so much for providing a much clearer translation in a format that we can access.
Lima, Peru
Also from Classics
You might also like
Orestes
$10.95