Home Feed
Home
Search
Search
Add Review, Blurb, Quote
Add
Activity
Activity
Profile
Profile
An Oresteia
An Oresteia: Agamemnon by Aiskhylos; Elektra by Sophokles; Orestes by Euripides | Anne Carson
4 posts | 5 read | 5 to read
In this innovative rendition of The Oresteia, the poet, translator, and essayist Anne Carson combines three different visions -- Aischylos' Agamemnon, Sophokles' Elektra, and Euripides' Orestes, giving birth to a wholly new experience of the classic Greek triumvirate of vengeance. Carson's accomplished rendering combines elements of contemporary vernacular with the traditional structures and rhetoric of Greek tragedy, opening up the plays to a modern audience. --from publisher description.
Amazon Indiebound Barnes and Noble WorldCat Goodreads LibraryThing
Pick icon
100%
quote
vivastory
post image

Intro. to Euripides' Orestes. This is the reading of the play that I took from the deus ex machina ending.

blurb
vivastory
post image

I was looking at different versions of Sophocles' Antigone online when I noticed the tagged book. What a fascinating project! Aeschylus' Oresteia, the only trilogy from ancient Greece to have survived, consists of Agamemnon, The Libation Bearers & The Eumenides. It tells of Agamemnon's short lived triumphant return home & the fall-out of his murder. It is a moving & powerful work that speaks of the social move from vigilantism to a judicial👇

vivastory system. The endless cycle of bloodshed & revenge echoes down through Shakespeare & even to Kurosawa's magnificent adaptation of Hammett's Red Harvest. Rather than offering new translations of the three originals, Carson has translated a play by each of the 3 tragedians, as the pub. site says, “three different versions of the tragedy of the house of Atreus.“ These works are like epic poems in that diff translations offer entirely new versions. (edited) 3y
Liz_M I loved this 3y
vivastory @Liz_M I'm glad to hear that! I'm kicking myself for not picking up Grief Lessons during the recent NYRB holiday flash sale. 3y
55 likes3 comments
review
mcausten_sister
post image
Pickpick

Enjoyed this translation of the stories of Agamemnon, Elektra, and Orestes by Anne Carson. The different authors for each part of the story reflect the profession of Athens' history, so that as the story progresses so does the historical backdrop the author is writing in.

#ancientgreece

Graywacke Cool. I found Anne Carson a terrific translator of these plays. (I think I read her version of Elektra.) 3y
5 likes1 comment
review
Emilymdxn
post image
Pickpick

A very liberal translation, which some ancient literature scholars won‘t like, but I adore the way Anne Carson breathed new life into the oresteia here. I‘m obsessed with her simple but highly emotive language, which makes the translations feel both modernised and timeless.

Liz_M An excellent translation! 4y
58 likes1 comment