Grief Lessons: Four Plays: Four Plays By Euripi (New York Review Books (Paperback))

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The rest of the play considers whether a man who sentences himself to death can be saved, and, if so, by whom. You can change your choices at any time by visiting Cookie preferences, as described in the Cookie notice. I wouldn’t have believed these images would work if I hadn’t seen them interacting with Carson’s swift, bold communication of Euripides’s words and spirit. These plays include The Trojan Women, Andromache, Helen, Hecuba, Iphigenia in Aulis and Iphigenia In Tauris.

Two interesting characters that also make an appearance in the play and whose presence lends to the mystery of its interpretation are the seer Tiresias and Pentheus’s grandfather, Kadmos. Nevertheless, the tragedy and beauty of Alkestis's sacrifice despite not having to is fantastic and juxtaposed rather nicely with the dudebro attitude of Herakles. Although this debate occurs near the end of the tragedy, it is in some ways where the play really begins: one demigod insists on a conventional theology of many gods who behave badly, while the other reasons his way to an existentialist view of life. Euripides,” the classicist Bernard Knox has written, —was born never to live in peace with himself and to prevent the rest of mankind from doing so.even if medea had never talked to aegeus, had no assurance of a place to go after leaving corinth, what happens at the end of medea can pretty much still happen. The book hit its zenith right in the last three pages, I could read Anne Carson wax poetic as Euripides for days.

Anyways, Alkestis is a fantastic character despite how little she speaks (literally, by the end), resembling Megara in Herakles. Ive read and taught it so many times, I don't think I have anything new to say about it, but its an old friend and like the Hekabe features great social commentary. hekabe was my favourite because i think carson is at her strongest when translating female rage and vengeance, she excels when tasked with putting into words emotions that are simply too big, too messy to be easily translated. ORIGINAL COMMENTARY: I often struggle with tragedy, in its inevitable sad ending: to me, sadness with happiness at the end are often more cathartic. It lends the scene a dash of the unexpected element—appropriate for a play about a bewildering god; yet the extreme humor seems out of place for a play that ends with a horrible decapitation.

Admetos and his father Pheres are both unlikeable in this play, but Admetos is a little more forgivable due to his position being a unique one of unsure standing. is nothing less than brilliant—unfalteringly sharp in diction, audacious and judicious in taking liberties. is nothing less than brilliant--unfalteringly sharp in diction, audacious and judicious in taking liberties. UPDATED COMMENTARY: I have actually been in a Greek Tragedy class now and read fifteen greek plays (a long review can be found here), so I feel more qualified to talk about this now. I used to own Thebes, where dragons' teeth sprang out of the earth like ears of corn and lived as men.