Euripides,John Davie,Richard Rutherford
alternate cover for ISBN: 0140446680 , Euripides, wrote Aristotle, â€˜is the most intensely tragic of all the poetsâ€™. In his questioning attitude to traditional pieties, disconcerting shifts of sympathy, disturbingly eloquent evil characters & acute insight into destructive passion, he's also the most strikingly modern of ancient authors. Written in the period of 426-415, during the fierce struggle for supremacy between Athens & Sparta, these five plays are haunted by the horrors of war & its particular impact on women. Only the ,Suppliants,, with its extended debate on democracy & 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 & concubine of Achillesâ€™ son Neoptolemos; while ,Hecabe, reveals how hatred can drive a victim to an appalling act of cruelty. ,Electra, develops & parodies Aeschylusâ€™ treatment of the same story, in which the heroine & her brother Orestes commit matricide to avenge their father Agamemnon. As always, Euripides presents the heroic figures of mythology as recognizable, often very fallible, humans.
Classics,Plays,Drama,Fiction,Plays,Theatre,Cultural,Greece,Fantasy,Mythology,Poetry,Literature,Ancient,Literature
Electra and Other Plays