The Bacchae and Other Plays [BACCHAE & OTHER PLAYS] [Paperback]

by Euripides

The Bacchae and Other Plays [BACCHAE & OTHER PLAYS] [Paperback]

Paperback

Published July 1, 2006

About the author

Euripides (Greek: Ευριπίδης) (ca. 480 BC–406 BC) was a tragedian of classical Athens. Along with Aeschylus and Sophocles, he is one of the three ancient Greek tragedians for whom any plays have survived in full. Some ancient scholars attributed ninety-five plays to him, but the Suda says it was ninety-two at most. Of these, eighteen or nineteen have survived more or less complete (Rhesus is suspect). There are many fragments (some substantial) of most of his other plays. More of his plays have survived intact than those of Aeschylus and Sophocles together, partly because his popularity grew as theirs declined—he became, in the Hellenistic Age, a cornerstone of ancient literary education, along with Homer, Demosthenes, and Menander.
Euripides is identified with theatrical innovations that have profoundly influenced drama down to modern times, especially in the representation of traditional, mythical heroes as ordinary people in extraordinary circumstances. This new approach led him to pioneer developments that later writers adapted to comedy, some of which are characteristic of romance. He also became "the most tragic of poets", focusing on the inner lives and motives of his characters in a way previously unknown. He was "the creator of ... that cage which is the theatre of William Shakespeare's Othello, Jean Racine's Phèdre, of Henrik Ibsen and August Strindberg," in which "imprisoned men and women destroy each other by the intensity of their loves and hates". But he was also the literary ancestor of comic dramatists as diverse as Menander and George Bernard Shaw.
His contemporaries associated him with Socrates as a leader of a decadent intellectualism. Both were frequently lampooned by comic poets such as Aristophanes. Socrates was eventually put on trial and executed as a corrupting influence. Ancient biographies hold that Euripides chose a voluntary exile in old age, dying in Macedonia, but recent scholarship casts doubt on these sources.

Reviews

[Surachai Boonyasiri · Rating 3 out of 5]

Useful are the introductory texts and the notes in the late section of the book.

I was impressed specifically with "Iphigenia at Aulis". The story of Iphigenia itself is greatest dramatic material. We all know how the story would conclude. Euripides, though, dramatized it to a compelling tragic height, at which the love for your kins and the binding of your duty clashed. It was one of the Ancient Greek dramas' themes, I presume: upholding honor against something--a device employed still to these days. Some academics argued that the Artemis' intervention at the end was not authentic to Euripides. I have no opinion on this, but I would rather pretty much it ended with Iphigenia's departure from her mother. Tragically classic.

In Phoenician Women, Antigone's persistence on the burial rite was, as it seems to me, prompted by the love of her brother rather than her good sense of duty and justice. I am not certain as to which version of her is more canonical, if there be at all.

Orestes and Pylades were cute: typical 'friendship' stuff. Like Achilles and Patroclus, I guess. Pylades reminded me of that pseudo-smart guy who was defenestrated by the King in the film Braveheart (1995) due to his very stupidity. I kept wondering, in like manner, if those of Pylades were sound advice. But ultimately it led to a happy ending so who am I to judge.

The other two plays are Rhesus and Bacchae--which, together with the aforementioned three--complete the book. I have no comment on how the translation fares since I know no Ancient Greek. I would love to read other Euripides' translations, surely, and, if possible, find a stage play on YouTube.