Translated by John Davie with an Introduction and Notes by Richard Rutherford.

Three timeless masterpieces of dramatic literature by Euripides are available in this volume. Featuring stunning central roles for women in particular; classically trained actors will find these tragic tales of vengeance full of passionate speeches and scenes for use in the classroom or in full production. These adaptations are in rhymed verse to create a close approximation of the rhythms and poetry of the original Greek texts.

Euripides was noted for his sensitive portrayals of women and for finding a sympathetic side to those whom the stock mythology tended to see as evil monsters. This volume contains an introduction outlining the background of Athenian tragedy followed by a line-by line commentary based on the translation of Philip Vellacott (Penguin Classics).

Among the best-known Greek tragedies, Electra is also one of the plays students of Greek often read in the original language. It tells the story of how Electra and her brother, Orestes, avenge the murder of their father, Agamemnon, by their mother and her lover. H. M. Roisman and C. A. E. Luschnig have developed a new edition of this seminal tragedy designed for twenty-first-century classrooms. Included with the Greek text are a useful introduction, line-by-line commentary, and other materials in English, all intended to support intermediate and advanced undergraduate students. Electra's gripping story and almost contemporary feel help make the play accessible and interesting to modern audiences. The liberties Euripides took with the traditional myth and the playwright's attitudes toward the gods can inspire fruitful classroom discussion about fifth-century Athenian thought, manners, and morals. Roisman and Luschnig invite readers to compare Euripides' treatment of the myth with those of Aeschylus and Sophocles and with variant presentations in epic and lyric poetry, later drama, and modern film. The introduction also places the play in historical context and describes conventions of the Greek theater specific to the work. Extensive appendices provide a complete metrical analysis of the play, helpful notes on grammar and syntax, an index of verbs, and a Greek-English glossary. In short, the authors have included everything students need to support and enhance their reading of Electra in its original language.

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 and acute insight into destructive passion, he is also the most strikingly modern of ancient authors. Written in the period from 426 to 415 BC, during the fierce struggle for supremacy between Athens and Sparta, these five plays are haunted by the horrors of war – and its particular impact on women. Only the Suppliants, with its extended debate on democracy and monarchy, can be seen as a patriotic piece. The Trojan Women is perhaps the greatest of all anti-war dramas; Andromache shows the ferocious clash between the wife and concubine of Achilles’ son Neoptolemos; while Hecabe reveals how hatred can drive a victim to an appalling act of cruelty. Electra develops (and parodies) Aeschylus’ treatment of the same story, in which the heroine and her brother Orestes commit matricide to avenge their father Agamemnon. As always, Euripides presents the heroic figures of mythology as recognizable, often very fallible, human beings. Some of his greatest achievements appear in this volume.

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