Euripides: The Complete Plays Volume II

by Carl R. Mueller (Translator)

Athens of the fifth century B.C.E. represents one of the towering achievements of civilization. It is the crucible in which Western Civilization was given form. It created rule by the people. Of the three supreme tragedians of Classical Athens; Aeschylus, Sophokles and Euripides, Euripides (480's-406 B.C.E.) is the most modern. His people are no longer the heroes of Aeschylus, inspired by Homer and the Heroic world of war and warriors. Nor are they the more humanistic characters of Sophokles, who created men and women of grand moral integrity. Rather, Euripides' people are pyschologically drawn, they are frequently petty, conniving, and conflicted. In other words, they are like us. The plays included ANDROMACHE HÊKABÊ SUPPLIANT WOMEN ÊLEKTRA THE MADNESS OF HERAKLÊS

Genres: Drama, Plays

Paperback

Published October 1, 2005

About the author

Carl R. Mueller has since 1967 been professor in the Department of Theater at the University of California, Los Angeles, where he has taught theater history, criticism, dramatic literature, and playwriting, as well as having directed. He was educated at Northwestern University, where he received a B.S. in English. After work in graduate English at the University of California, Berkeley, he received his M.A. in playwriting at UCLA, where he also completed his Ph.D. in theater history and criticism. In addition, he was a Fulbright Scholar in Berlin in 1960-1961. A translator for more than forty years, he has translated and published works by Georg Büchner, Bertolt Brecht, Frank Wedekind, Gerhart Hauptmann, Hugo von Hofmannsthal, and Friedrich Hebbel, to name a few. His published translation of Ödön von Horváth's Tales from the Vienna Woods was given its London West End premiere in July 1999. For Smith and Kraus, he has translated volumes of plays by Arthur Schnitzler, August Strindberg, Luigi Pirandello, Heinrich von Kleist, and Frank Wedekind, as well as Johann Wolfgang von Goethe's Faust, Parts I and II. In addition to translating the complete plays of Euripides and Aeschylus for Smith and Kraus, he has also co-translated the plays of Sophocles. His translations have been performed in every English-speaking country and have appeared on BBC-TV.

Reviews

[EJ Daniels · Rating 5 out of 5]

This volume contains Andromache, Hekabe, The Supplicant Women, Elektra, and The Madness of Herakles

There are two ways to translate Greek drama into English: employ lofty verbiage to convey the exalted nature of the text, or employ casual and common speech to capture the effect of the original Greek on Greek audiences. Dr. Carl R. Mueller has opted for the latter and he achieves it with remarkable success.

By rendering Euripides in a very colloquial and plebeian English, Mueller captures that sense of the pedantic would ought to define the ubiquity, if certainly not the art, of Attic tragedy, in that these works were intended for regular enjoyment by regular people. Do not fret, however, as Mueller never veers into OMG Shakespeare territory.

Mueller also avoids the faults of No Fear Shakespeare and assumes that his readers are not idiots by shunning entirely explanatory footnotes. He does provide, however, a very helpful appendix of names and places for those in need of a refresher course on Classical personages and places.

I would recommend this edition to anyone interested in a quality and yet very comfortable introduction to Greek tragedy. The works of Euripides are valuable not only for their timeless beauty, which Mueller has expertly rendered, but for their timeless value as well; there is much the Greeks may yet teach us.