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Euripides: The Complete Plays Volume I
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 psychologically drawn, they are frequently petty, conniving, and conflicted. In other words, they are like us. Plays included alkêstis mêdeia children of heraklês hippolytos
- GenresPlays
236 pages, Paperback
First published October 1, 2005
12 people want to read
About the author
Carl R. Mueller
46 booksCarl 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.
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Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
June 7, 2009
In reading all of the books on the Great Books list, Euripides was the last of the Greek playwrights for me to conquer, and for that, I think I may have short-changed him. I found several of his plays more difficult to get through than the other Greek playwrights.
In The Bacchae, the overuse of the Greek Chorus as a central character made relating to the action of the play difficult. In Helen, the drawn out counter-explanation for Helen of Troy not really being taken by Paris to start the Trojan Wars and the long-winded reunion between her and her husband seemed clunky and convoluted - though let there be no confusion that I am hands down a Helen apologist.
It was instead Euripides' takes on the already-told and re-told classic Greek stories that I most enjoyed. His Orestes,and Iphigenia in Tauris, to me, filled in the gaps of the Orestia, giving us a more thorough view of the emotions and decisions of the key actors - Why Agamemnon kills his daughter, how Clytemenstra reacts to it (and subsequently plots his death), and how Orestes reacts after the slaying of his mother, and how Electra sets forth to help him while also dealing with the same death. Together I think these are probably the best versions of this story in the scope with which they address conflicting human emotion, desire, and the consequences of our actions. I would say the same for his version of the Oedipus Trilogy, portrayed in The Suppliants, but though it is interesting in its great deviations from other tellings, I was annoyed with the downplaying of Antigone - a feminist sacrilege if ever there was one.
As for the rest of the plays, I fear many of them are already fading from memory and impact. Did I even read Hecuba? And is that a flaw in Euripides writing or my failing attention? I'm not sure, and though I could guess an answer, I'd rather not say - what with hubris lurking and all.
In The Bacchae, the overuse of the Greek Chorus as a central character made relating to the action of the play difficult. In Helen, the drawn out counter-explanation for Helen of Troy not really being taken by Paris to start the Trojan Wars and the long-winded reunion between her and her husband seemed clunky and convoluted - though let there be no confusion that I am hands down a Helen apologist.
It was instead Euripides' takes on the already-told and re-told classic Greek stories that I most enjoyed. His Orestes,and Iphigenia in Tauris, to me, filled in the gaps of the Orestia, giving us a more thorough view of the emotions and decisions of the key actors - Why Agamemnon kills his daughter, how Clytemenstra reacts to it (and subsequently plots his death), and how Orestes reacts after the slaying of his mother, and how Electra sets forth to help him while also dealing with the same death. Together I think these are probably the best versions of this story in the scope with which they address conflicting human emotion, desire, and the consequences of our actions. I would say the same for his version of the Oedipus Trilogy, portrayed in The Suppliants, but though it is interesting in its great deviations from other tellings, I was annoyed with the downplaying of Antigone - a feminist sacrilege if ever there was one.
As for the rest of the plays, I fear many of them are already fading from memory and impact. Did I even read Hecuba? And is that a flaw in Euripides writing or my failing attention? I'm not sure, and though I could guess an answer, I'd rather not say - what with hubris lurking and all.
November 6, 2016
This volume contains Alkestis, Medeia, The Heraklids , and Hippolytos.
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.
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.
February 16, 2009
There are many versions of Euripides...pure chance, rather than the fact that Mueller translated Pirandello, drew me to this one. It made me think of the attacks on television in the 70's/80's that were parried by pointing to the sex and violence in Shapespeare. Here while there is plenty of physical violence, it's the psychological warfare that rings across the milennia.
Is Medeia a sister to "Basic Instinct" (honestly I've never seen the Glenn Close film, but I think the cautionary scare tactics match if the plots don't quite). Hippolytos these days tends to get turned into a French farce based on the misguided arrows of romance. Artemis' bow loses to Cupid-cum-Aphrodite's aim?
Age-old taboos are rarely as starkly and succintly laid bare in our age, but surely the underlying conflicts persist. By and large an easy read, if more or less uneasy topics. The Greek chorus is a unique thing to encounter, kind of like a safety-in-numbers magnet for those whose moral compass has a dislodged lodestone? Anyways, I'll seek out the next set by Mueller. A UCLA prof evidently.
Hmmmm, kind of makes me think to revive ye olde radio drama with versions of these?
Is Medeia a sister to "Basic Instinct" (honestly I've never seen the Glenn Close film, but I think the cautionary scare tactics match if the plots don't quite). Hippolytos these days tends to get turned into a French farce based on the misguided arrows of romance. Artemis' bow loses to Cupid-cum-Aphrodite's aim?
Age-old taboos are rarely as starkly and succintly laid bare in our age, but surely the underlying conflicts persist. By and large an easy read, if more or less uneasy topics. The Greek chorus is a unique thing to encounter, kind of like a safety-in-numbers magnet for those whose moral compass has a dislodged lodestone? Anyways, I'll seek out the next set by Mueller. A UCLA prof evidently.
Hmmmm, kind of makes me think to revive ye olde radio drama with versions of these?
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews