The Oresteia: Agamemnon, Libation Bearers, and The Holy Goddesses (Wisconsin Studies in Classics) - Softcover

Aeschylus

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0299315649 ISBN 13: 9780299315641

Publisher: University of Wisconsin Press, 2018

Synopsis

First presented in the spring of 458 B.C.E. at the festival of Dionysus in Athens, Aeschylus' trilogy Oresteia won the first prize. Comprised of three plays―Agamemnon, Libation Bearers, and The Furies―it is the only surviving example of the ancient trilogy form for Greek tragedies.

This drama of the House of Atreus catches everyone in a bloody net. Queen Clytaemestra of Argos murders her husband Agamemnon. Their son Orestes avenges his father by killing his mother. The Furies, hideous deities who punish the murder of blood kin, pursue Orestes. Into this horrific cycle steps Athena, goddess of wisdom, who establishes the rule of law to replace fatal vengeance. Orestes is tried in court before a jury of Athenians and found not guilty. Athena transforms the Furies into benevolent goddesses and extols the virtue of mercy.

An important historical document as well as gripping entertainment, the Oresteia conveys beliefs and values of the ancient Athenians as they established the world's first great democracy. Aeschylus (525/4–456/5 B.C.E.) was the first of the three great tragic dramatists of ancient Greece, forerunner of Sophocles and Euripides. In this trilogy he created a new dramatic form with characters and plot, infused with spellbinding emotion. David Mulroy's fluid, accessible English translation with its rhyming choral songs does full justice to the meaning and theatricality of the ancient Greek. In an introduction and appendixes, he provides cultural background for modern readers, actors, and students.

About this title

About the Author

David Mulroy is a professor emeritus of classics at the University of Wisconsin–Milwaukee. His translations of The Complete Poetry of Catullus and of Sophocles' Theban trilogy—Oedipus Rex, Antigone, and Oedipus at Colonus—are all published by the University of Wisconsin Press.

Review

Praise for Mulroy's translation of Agamemnon:
"Could well become the standard text for students of classics in English, as pre-reading for those attempting the difficult Greek, and possibly as an acting version. . . . It is the best this reviewer has come across."
―Classics for All

About this edition

• Publisher: University of Wisconsin Press
• Publication date: 2018
• ISBN 10: 0299315649
• ISBN 13: 9780299315641
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 264