An incredibly exciting read, while I know the story of The Oresteia (Agamemnon returns, Clytemnestra and her lover kill him in his bathtub and OrestesAn incredibly exciting read, while I know the story of The Oresteia (Agamemnon returns, Clytemnestra and her lover kill him in his bathtub and Orestes then kills them), I had never read the Aeschylus plays. I got the Oliver Taplin translation which is a beautiful book, not encrusted with footnotes, and seemed like an excellent translation to me (and it got an excellent Emily Wilson review that, bizarrely, panned the introduction--which seemed perfectly fine to me).
The first play is "Agamemnon" and it opens dramatically with a series of signal fires alerting Clytemnestra to the Greek victory at Troy and then the chorus doing a long story, especially the vivid, poignant and horrific sacrifice of Iphigenia at Aulis before the war began. Then Agamemnon returns and Clytemnestra and him alternate talking more to the chorus than each other (I'm not sure if that was intended to be a depiction of a frosty marriage or just the dramatic rules Aeschylus was operating with). Then comes the murder which comes as close to an action scene, even if it happens offstage, as I've read in a Greek tragedy and then fascinatingly the chorus breaks out into a series of individual voices that debated and wrestled with their confusion about what to do about his murder.
The second play is translated here as "Women at the Graveside" and begins somewhat melodramatically with Orestes' return and Electra's silly but feels-dramatic-in-the-moment recognition of him by his hair and footprints. It goes on to a particularly dramatic murder scene where Clytemnestra bears her breast while begging her son not to murder her--and he does anyway (come to think of it, this may be even more of an action-scene than the Agamemnon murder which I said was as close to an action scene as you get just one paragraph ago).
Finally the third play is the weirdest, in this case translated as "Orestes at Athens." The chorus is made up of Erinyes (also known as Furies, but Taplin prefers the Greek word so readers can approach the strange beings that avenge blood murders afresh). Much of it centers around a trial of Orestes presided over by Athena and the question of whether the Erinyes are authorized to punish him because of his crime or whether he was protected by the fact that he was fulfilling an oracle.
Presumably much has been written about the meaning of all of this, what it says about human emotions, fate, relationships, families, etc. But I mostly liked it as a dramatic, moving, exciting and weird set of timeless stories....more
A really exciting opening with the ghost of Polydorus hovering over the scene and foretelling the terrible events that will happen to Hecuba (the wifeA really exciting opening with the ghost of Polydorus hovering over the scene and foretelling the terrible events that will happen to Hecuba (the wife of Priam): that she will both find his body (he is her son, she sent him away in order to save him, but didn’t realize the plan failed) and have to deal with the human sacrifice of one of her few remaining daughters, Polyxena (which is portrayed as Polyxena accepting her fate as better than slavery, which may not be the best way to write from the perspective of a woman who is being ritually murdered). Agamemnon comes to Hecuba’s defense over the murder of Polydorus and ends up helping her get revenge. Hecuba herself is an extraordinary heroine.
I did not love this play and found some of the abrupt shifts jarring. I felt somewhat vindicated (and also undermined my thoughts that I might have anI did not love this play and found some of the abrupt shifts jarring. I felt somewhat vindicated (and also undermined my thoughts that I might have any unique perceptions) when I read the introduction after reading the play and discovered that my reaction was the same that many critics have had for at least several centuries.
Andromoche is about Hector’s widow in the aftermath of the Trojan War, now a slave to Achilles’ son Neoptolemus. Of course, the real conflict she has is not with her enslaver and rapist but with the wife he takes, Hermoine, who bitterly fights with her over his affections. It all starts out coherently and with a focused drama, largely centering around these two women, but then the plot jumps abruptly in various directions that do not have the Aristotelian unity of time and place, do not have much of an internal logic, and make it more about catching up with events than the unfolding of dramatic tensions.
It was a lot of fun reading an entire play that centered around the extended and poetic ravings of a madman, Ajax, who is driven to that state becauseIt was a lot of fun reading an entire play that centered around the extended and poetic ravings of a madman, Ajax, who is driven to that state because he wasn’t given Achilles armor after his death. This leads him to want to kill the Greek leaders but instead Athena diverts him into killing a more random group of Greeks. Ajax eventually kills himself. Some parts of the play feel less well integrated (that seems to happen a lot), like the lengthy dispute over what to do with Ajax’s body which is anti-climatic compared to what happened before and, of course, takes place entirely without the title character. But just the mad scenes themselves are enough to fully justify this play.
I absolutely loved this play. There is something exciting about reading a completely new Greek tragedy and having the experience that even most GreeksI absolutely loved this play. There is something exciting about reading a completely new Greek tragedy and having the experience that even most Greeks watching the tragedy for the first time didn’t have, which is a modicum of suspense in how it will actually turn out. I didn’t know the story of Odysseus taking Achilles’ son Neoptolemus to bring back the wounded Philoctetes from an island because it was prophesied that he needed to return to Troy in order for the Greeks to win the war. Moreover, the play itself does not have a lot of foreshadowing that gives it away.
The play itself seems among the more psychologically perceptive and realistic of the Greek tragedies. Odysseus effectively pressures the younger and more inexperienced Neoptolemus into lying to Philoctetes (Odysseus’s trickery is portrayed as dishonorable compared to the more honest and forthright use of force). The success of the lie makes Neoptolemus guilty and leads him to recant. In what is arguably a weak resolution, literally a deus ex machina, Heracles comes and persuades Philoctetes to actually go to Troy so that Odysseus and Neoptolemus eventually get their way not through guile or force but divine intervention and inevitability.
I really enjoyed the Seamus Heaney translation. It mostly seems like a straight translation (although I didn’t compare to more rigorous translators), but towards the end he inserted some contemporary references, including to hunger strikers, that effectively (although slightly datedly) underscored the contemporary relevance of the play....more
I read as part of the new Modern Library collection edited by Mary Lefkowitz and James Romm. It has a nice introduction, the play was well translated,I read as part of the new Modern Library collection edited by Mary Lefkowitz and James Romm. It has a nice introduction, the play was well translated, and the volume overall is very nice. And of course the play is, literally, a classic....more
Seamus Heaney's translation of the Aeneid Book VI (where Aeneas goes to the underworld) is a wonderful to read and focus on just one part of the AeneiSeamus Heaney's translation of the Aeneid Book VI (where Aeneas goes to the underworld) is a wonderful to read and focus on just one part of the Aeneid, an epic that has many strong elements that are better than the whole....more
I remember Joy de Menil telling me that the first six chapters of the Aeneid were great but the last six were unreadable and merited skipping. It tookI remember Joy de Menil telling me that the first six chapters of the Aeneid were great but the last six were unreadable and merited skipping. It took me another twenty years to get around to reading it and I largely agree with Joy -- although I found some parts to like in the second half.
The first six books are Odyssey-like and recount Aeneas' travels from the fall of Troy, through a variety of islands, to Carthage. It begins in media res (not sure of the Latin of this) with the gods fighting about the treatment of Aeneas. Within the first pages the narrator rushes to inform us that the book will culminate in the triumph of Rome, a theme it returns to somewhat didactically throughout.
Following the opening book, is a second book with an extraordinary and largely self-contained flashback to the fall of Troy, including Aeneas' bitter recriminations about the decision to bring the wooden horse into the city walls and some moving scenes with the ghost of his wife who got separated from him in the shuffle. The tragedy of Dido and Aeneas is another largely self-contained book in the first half.
The journey's forward momentum begins with Aeneas' trip to the underworld to see his dead father (not quite as dramatic as one might have hoped). This is followed by the second half of the epic, which is an Iliad-like accounting of the Trojans' war with the Latins, a conflict that is even more pointless than the Trojan War because the leaders of both sides both see the same peaceful solution but repeatedly get driven apart by Juno and her minions.
Unlike the Iliad and the Odyssey, most of the stories and characters in the second half of the Aeneid were completely unfamiliar to me. I don't think I had ever heard of Latinus, Turnus, Amata, Lavinia or Evander -- all characters that loom large in the epic war that Virgil describes. That is in stark contrast to Agamemnon, Clytemnestra, Paris, Helen, Priam, Hector, Odysseus, Patrcolus, the Ajaxes, Achilles, and the many other familiar characters that populate The Iliad. I think it is largely because of this that the second half is so much less engaging and dramatic (or it could be that all of these figures are less familiar because the second half is less engaging and dramatic).
Regardless, certainly not something anyone should miss reading, even if you wait another twenty years from now....more
11/25/2017 - 12/23/2017 (Emily Wilson translation) The Emily Wilson translation is stunning. It is done in verse and follows the original line by line,11/25/2017 - 12/23/2017 (Emily Wilson translation) The Emily Wilson translation is stunning. It is done in verse and follows the original line by line, but in a manner that is clear and direct rather than archaic or artificial. The extensive introduction is also excellent with both historical background, compositional background, maps and more—plus the obligatory note on why this translation is better than all the previous. But then the text itself is beautiful to read with no footnotes (at least not called out), so you are immersed in the story and the world rather than the feeling of reading a school book. Highly recommended....more
Robert Alter's translation of the Five Books of Moses is stunning. There is something wonderful about reading them translated from scratch by a singleRobert Alter's translation of the Five Books of Moses is stunning. There is something wonderful about reading them translated from scratch by a single person so that it embodies a fresh, singular vision rather than a committee that builds on previous translations (although the New Standard Revised Version has a lot to be said for it, and the other work of a single translator I once tried to read--Everett Foxx--was borderline unreadable). It is also a beautiful edition, nicely printed with excellent and detailed footnotes that focus on the literary qualities of the text but also provide explanations and context for much of the text as well. It is also nice to have a large volume devoted just to the Torah. I read this over the course of a number of years, next up is Robert Alter's just published "Ancient Israel" which covers Joshua through Kings....more
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