One of the Penn Greek Drama Series, this volume, the second of four projected for the series of plays by Euripides, contains three tragedies plus HELEN, which could be called a romantic comedy, and CYCLOPS, the so-called satyr play of disputed authorship.

Based on the conviction that only translators who write poetry themselves can properly recreate the celebrated and timeless tragedies of Aeschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides, the Greek Tragedy in New Translations series offers new translations that go beyond the literal meaning of the Greek in order to evoke the poetry of the originals. Under the editorship of Peter Burian and Alan Shapiro, each volume includes a critical introduction, commentary on the text, full stage directions, and a glossary of the mythical and geographical references in the plays. Already tested in performance on the stage, this translation shows for the first time in English the striking interplay of voices in Euripides' Suppliant Women. Torn between the mothers' lament over the dead and proud civic eulogy, between calls for a just war and grief for the fallen, the play captures with unremitting force the competing poles of the human psyche. The translators, Rosanna Warren and Stephen Scully, accentuate the contrast between female lament and male reasoned discourse in this play where the silent dead hold, finally, center stage.

What man would murder his daughter to help a fleet get out to sea, or give his wife over to death in his stead? The tragedies in this Penn Greek Drama Series volume are filled with such dramatic conflicts.

"Here Euripides stands, in vigorous English versions that fully do him justice. The most modern of the Greek tragedians has found a compelling modern form."--Robert Fagles

Euripides is, of the three great Attic tragedians, perhaps the most contemporary in sensibility. This volume contains four of his plays, largely about women, in translations that reveal the complexities of these strong figures--even the towering, murderous Medea can be seen in a sympathetic light. Continues the Penn Greek Drama Series.

After centuries of neglect, Aeschylus’ Seven Against Thebes has gained increasing prominence worldwide and in the United States in particular, where a hip-hop production caught the public imagination in the new millennium. This study analyses three translations of Aeschylus’ tragedy (by Helen H. Bacon and Anthony Hecht, 1973; Stephen Sandy, 1999; and Carl R. Mueller, 2002) and two adaptations (by Will Power, 2001-2008; and Ellen Stewart, 2001-2004). Beginning in the late 1960s, the Seven Against Thebes has received multiple new readings: at stake are Eteocles’ and Polynices’ relationships with the (past and present) Labdacid dynasty; the brothers’ claims to the Theban polis and to their inheritance; and the metatheatrical implications of their relationship to Oedipus’ legacy. This previously forgotten play provides a timely response to the power dynamics at work in the contemporary US, where the fight for ethnic, cultural, economic, and linguistic recognition is a daily reality and always involves dialogue with the individual’s own past and tradition.

Sophocles, Aeschylus and Euripides are often described as the greatest tragedians of the ancient world. Of these three pivotal founders of modern drama, Euripides is characterized as the interloper and the innovator: the man who put tragic verse into the mouths of slaves, women and the socially inferior in order to address vital social issues such as sex, class and gender relations. It is perhaps little wonder that his work should find such resonance in the modern day. In this concise introduction, Isabelle Torrance engages with the thematic, cultural and scholarly difficulties that surround his plays to demonstrate why Euripides remains a figure of perennial relevance. Addressing here issues of social context, performance theory, fifth-century philosophy and religion, textual criticism and reception, the author presents an astute and attractively-written guide to the Euripidean corpus – from the widely read and celebrated Medea to the lesser-known and deeply ambiguous Alcestis.

This book offers the most comprehensive and up-to-date history of ancient Greek literature from Homer to Late Antiquity. Its clear structure and detailed presentation of Greek authors and their works as well as literary genres and phenomena makes it an indispensable reference work for all those interested in Greek Antiquity, particularly well-suited for use in the classroom.