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Aeschylus: Eumenides (Cambridge Greek and Latin Classics)
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- ISBN-100521284309
- ISBN-13978-0521284301
- PublisherCambridge University Press
- Publication dateJanuary 12, 2008
- LanguageEnglish
- Dimensions5 x 0.81 x 8 inches
- Print length324 pages
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Book Description
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- Publisher : Cambridge University Press (January 12, 2008)
- Language : English
- Paperback : 324 pages
- ISBN-10 : 0521284309
- ISBN-13 : 978-0521284301
- Item Weight : 1.23 ounces
- Dimensions : 5 x 0.81 x 8 inches
- Best Sellers Rank: #2,842,204 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #662 in Americana Antiques & Collectibles
- #810 in Classic Greek Literature
- #1,263 in Ancient & Classical Dramas & Plays
- Customer Reviews:
About the authors
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Aeschylus (/ˈiːskᵻləs/ or /ˈɛskᵻləs/; Greek: Αἰσχύλος Aiskhulos; Ancient Greek: [ai̯s.kʰý.los]; c. 525/524 – c. 456/455 BC) was an ancient Greek tragedian. He is also the first whose plays still survive; the others are Sophocles and Euripides. He is often described as the father of tragedy: critics and scholars' knowledge of the genre begins with his work, and understanding of earlier tragedies is largely based on inferences from his surviving plays. According to Aristotle, he expanded the number of characters in theater to allow conflict among them, whereas characters previously had interacted only with the chorus.
Only seven of his estimated seventy to ninety plays have survived, and there is a longstanding debate regarding his authorship of one of these plays, Prometheus Bound, which some believe his son Euphorion actually wrote. Fragments of some other plays have survived in quotes and more continue to be discovered on Egyptian papyrus, often giving us surprising insights into his work. He was probably the first dramatist to present plays as a trilogy; his Oresteia is the only ancient example of the form to have survived. At least one of his plays was influenced by the Persians' second invasion of Greece (480-479 BC). This work, The Persians, is the only surviving classical Greek tragedy concerned with contemporary events (very few of that kind were ever written), and a useful source of information about its period. The significance of war in Ancient Greek culture was so great that Aeschylus' epitaph commemorates his participation in the Greek victory at Marathon while making no mention of his success as a playwright. Despite this, Aeschylus' work – particularly the Oresteia – is acclaimed by today's literary academics.
Bio from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. Photo by Unknown [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.
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I found this edition of the third play of Aeschylus' Oresteia very fine and very complete, and I was able to read all of the Eumenides with it -- and I am only in my second year of Greek (although my dedication may be above average). Sommerstein hits all the notes and remains balanced. The emendations are eminently well-defended; the meters are clear; the notes are thick and well-written. The historical overview of the years leading up to 458, when the play was produced, is unusually thorough for a book like this and deserves to become the standard for all such introductions. The cross-referencing with lines from other Greek literature is exhaustive and complete; much of the cross-referencing to different articles and works by modern authors impresses as well, with one caveat below.
Depending on which kind of an Oresteia scholar you are, you may become frustrated with this book. In his notes, Sommerstein evades many of the gender issues that are seen by some as essential to the play. This is done with the utmost in skill, though, so if you didn't know (or couldn't read or think) you might think there were no gender issues in the play. Hand-in-hand with this fact, he ignores important American writing on the Oresteia (done by Froma Zeitlin in her bold, some might venture to say excessive, but nonetheless important 1977 article "The Dynamics of Misogyny," for example) and does subscribe to a view of the Oresteia with which I have great sympathy, but that some may find naively progressive. To wit, Sommerstein believes the Oresteia to be about joy, triumph, cooperation in Athens, and a new era.
Overall, regardless of these matters this book is very fine. I would certainly use it were I to teach a reading class on the play.
In addition to the Greek text, this edition also includes a 36 page introduction, just over 200 pages of commentary, a limited 3 page bibliography whose latest entry comes from 1987, a brief metrical appendix, and two indexes (one of subjects, one of Greek terms discussed). The introduction consists of a number of mini-essays on 8 separate topics: an overview of the Orestes-myth and its major literary manifestations, a discussion of the nature of the Erinyes-Eumenides-Semnai (which yields the interesting observation that the identification of the Erinyes with the Eumenides appears to postdate Aeschylus, along with the play's current title), a historical account of the Areopagus court, a survey of Aeschylus's life and work, a very provocative argument that the "Eumenides" has overt topical references and relevance to the political situation of Athens in 458 BC, a discussion of the staging and production of the play, and a brief treatment of the play's textual transmission. It is well to mention that this introduction (and the book in general) seems to be pitched to an audience that is already very familiar with the general contours of the Oresteia and the fundamental conventions of Greek Tragedy. For example, there are no plot summaries, histories of the genre of Tragedy, or instructions on how to scan meter and identify Doric forms to be found anywhere in this commentary.
That being said, the commentary is written and structured in such a way that a reader with 2-3 years of Greek should be able to read the "Eumenides" without too much frustration with syntax and vocabulary, provided he or she makes frequent reference to the LSJ dictionary. For more advanced readers, I would say that in terms of being able to anticipate the reader's difficulties, this is among the best commentaries on a Greek tragedy that I have encountered. Virtually every time I had a question about unusual syntax or unusual diction, I turned to the back and found a concise and helpful note that addressed it. The major commentaries on the "Agamemnon" and "Choephori" are not nearly as geared towards helping the reader progress efficiently through the play as this commentary is, and besides the edition of "Prometheus Bound" in the same series, I do not know of any other affordable commentary on a tragedy of Aeschylus that succeeds in making one of his plays so immediately accessible.
In addition to help with diction and syntax, the commentary also frequently cites verbal and thematic parallels in other Greek dramas, identifies and delineates connections between the "Eumenides" and the two previous plays in the trilogy, and, where relevant to interpretation, attempts to reconstruct the logistics of staging (entrances and exits, the use of "special effects" and props, etc.). At several points, the commentator also incorporates short essays into the commentary that analyze (among other things) character presentation and development, the legal argumentation deployed by each of the characters in the play, and the philosophical/religious/political implications of various aspects of the trial. These essays run in length from one to several pages, and as a whole they constitute a comprehensive and judicious explanation of what this play might have meant to its original audience.
Overall, this is a very rich and useful commentary that makes a notoriously difficult author much more accessible, and it does so by presenting a wealth of detail while highlighting the information that a non-specialist reader needs to progress through the play at a swift and efficient pace.