Harvard Classics Volume 8: Nine Greek Dramas

by Charles William Eliot (Editor), Euripides, Aristophanes

Compiled and Edited by Charles W. Eliot LL D in 1909, the Harvard Classics is a 51-volume Anthology of classic literature from throughout the history of western civilization. The set is sometimes called "Eliot's Five-Foot Shelf."

Volume 8 contains nine Greek Dramas.
From Aeschylus:
Agamemnon
The Libation Bearers
The Furies
Prometheus Bound

From Sophocles:
Oedipus the King
Antigone

From Euripides:
Hippolytus
The Bacchae

From Aristophanes:
The Frogs

Genres: Classics, Drama, Plays, Nonfiction

491 pages, Kindle Edition

First published January 1, 1909

About the author

Charles William Eliot was an American academic who was selected as Harvard's president in 1869. He transformed the provincial college into the preeminent American research university. Eliot served the longest term as president in the university's history.

Reviews

[Nullifidian · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was an excellent selection of classic Greek dramas. The translations might strike the average reader as a trifle antiquated since the Harvard Classics itself was printed in the first decade of the 20th century, but in my opinion they were still all perfectly readable and enjoyable.

The nine plays in this volume are as follows:

The House of Atreus (a.k.a., The Oresteia) by Aeschylus, consisting of:

Agamemnon
The Libation Bearers
The Furies

Prometheus Bound by Aeschylus

Oedipus the King by Sophocles

Antigone by Sophocles

Hippolytus by Euripides

The Bacchae by Euripides

The Frogs by Aristophanes

For anyone who would like a more modern look at Greek drama, though it omits Aristophanes' "Old Comedy" and strictly looks at the Greek tragedians, I can recommend The Greek Plays: Sixteen Plays by Aeschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides by Mary Lefkowitz and James Romm. I wasn't always on board with every choice of the translators, but it's still the best single-volume introduction to classical Hellenic drama in print.

[Jonathan · Rating 5 out of 5]

I read "Nine Greek Dramas". This book is a collection of Greek Epics. It was written by Charles William Eliot. In this review I will go over my favorite Epic in this book, "The Furies".

The main characters in this story are Apollo, the Pythian Priestess, Aeschylus,and the Furies. In this Epic Apollo is sitting in up in Olympus with the rest of the Gods, Then he sees a beautiful girl and falls immediately in love. He tries to talk with the girl but she doesn't like him back. This girl is a Priestess for Pythia. Pythia is the god of strategy and wisdom, but she also believes that women don't need to live under men. So she bans her Priest to get maried or love a man. After constant denial Apollo disguises himself as a man that the Priestess once loved With a spell he got from Calypso, the god of magic. She falls for the facade and loves Apollo, But once Pythia finds out She gets really mad at Apollo. She ask Hades and Zeus to help her get revenge. So Hades creates her three hideous and evil monster he named the Furies. Zeus gave Pythia permission to lock Apollo with the monsters for a century. Pythia also killed the Priestess.

I enjoyed this book very much. I usually like books that involve greek mythology they are always interesting and fun. I did get kind of confused with the poems because of all the weird phrases and rhymes, but it was still a nice book.

[Melissa Diaz · Rating 5 out of 5]

Profoundly engaging, compelling themes, great characters. The language of the HC (Harvard Classics) may be a slog, but I find that part of the appeal of wading through these volumes. The turn of the century language takes some getting used to, but while you're reading some great work of literature, you're also making connections about language and how it's evolved over time that will make you a better reader overall, of both contemporary and classical works. For these reasons, and maybe more I don't feel like taking the time to dive into or think up right now, reading the HC is like taking your brain to the gym to get swoll, bruh. It's reps (as in, I had to read the same line over and over again for an embarrasing length of time) and weights (meaning I had to go load up on several mental pounds of dictionary definitions, etymologies and wikipedia summaries before I knew what the hell I was looking at sometimes) for your thinkie parts.

[Bob · Rating 3 out of 5]

Probably due to the age of these stories, and the style of the times, these dramas are a hard read. However, once you make the effort, you will be rewarded with so many ideas that are present in modern thought that you wonder how much progress we have actually made over two and a half millennia. One thing that struck me was that I had read Antigone in high school, and some later drama, but that we were told that comedy in olden times was not like modern comedy. The play "The Frogs" by Aristophanes was an excellent comedy in the modern sense, even humorous throughout. Brekekekex, ko-ax, ko-ax (frog sounds in Greek, I suppose), was most hilarious, and the whole idea of going to Hades to talk with ancient playwrights in order to compare the change in style over time and to determine who was the best, the plot of the story, is itself quite amusing. The other eight plays were all older and all tragedies, but each helped one's understanding of the ideas presented and the historical perspective. I enjoyed all nine dramas.

[David Redden · Rating 3 out of 5]

I know I'm a better person for having read these, but it was a slog.