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Medea and Other Plays
Medea and Other Plays | Euripides
6 posts | 14 read | 6 to read
Four plays which exemplify his interest in flawed, characters who defy the expectations of Greek society, Euripides' Medea and Other Plays is translated with an introduction by Philip Vellacott in Penguin Classics. The four tragedies collected in this volume all focus on a central character, once powerful, brought down by betrayal, jealousy, guilt and hatred. The first playwright to depict suffering without reference to the gods, Euripides made his characters speak in human terms and face the consequences of their actions. In Medea, a woman rejected by her lover takes hideous revenge by murdering the children they both love, and Hecabe depicts the former queen of Troy, driven mad by the prospect of her daughter's sacrifice to Achilles. Electra portrays a young woman planning to avenge the brutal death of her father at the hands of her mother, while in Heracles the hero seeks vengeance against the evil king who has caused bloodshed in his family. Philip Vellacott's lucid translation is accompanied by an introduction, which discusses the literary background of Classical Athens and examines the distinction between instinctive and civilized behaviour. Euripides (c.485-07 BC) was an Athenian born into a family of considerable rank. Disdaining the public duties expected of him, Euripides spent a life of quiet introspection, spending much of his life in a cave on Salamis. Late in life he voluntarily exiled himself to the court of Archelaus, King of Macedon, where he wrote The Bacchae, regarded by many as his greatest work. Euripides is thought to have written 92 plays, only 18 of which survive. If you enjoyed Medea and Other Plays, you might like Aeschylus' The Oresteian Trilogy, also available in Penguin Classics.
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psalva
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Pickpick

Collected here are Alcestis, Medea, Children of Heracles, and Hippolytus. I thoroughly enjoyed reading all of them. Euripides has a style that is very accessible and his skill at exploring the motives of actions shines, particularly in Medea. Even if you don‘t agree with the final actions of characters, it is easy to see how they feel forced to act the way they do. The plots were a bit too convenient at times, but that is true to the genre.

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PippoRanito
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Pickpick

Euripides is my favourite of all the Greek playwrights. Medea's howls and cries still resound today. Isn't Jason's "rational" refusal to acknowledge Medea's pain resonant with how men - across history - deal with women's "emotionality"? For those wanting to try Greek classics, Euripides is the "most modern" of them all, hence, the most accessible. This Penguin edition captures the very best of Euripides. Pick it up!

#classics #greek #tragedy

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Bookwomble
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Anger,
The spring of all life's horror.

- "Medea”

Bookwomble In the context of the play, this sentiment is understandable, particularly as spoken by Medea as she contemplates murdering her children as revenge against Jason for abandoning her, but on reflection I think anger can be a positive emotion when it's telling us about an injustice, and when it is a spur to proportionate action. Medea's crime is the horror of her disproportionate and utterly self-centred response to Jason's betrayal. 6y
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Bookwomble
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"There is no justice in the world's censorious eyes. They will not wait to learn a man's true character;
Though no wrong has been done them, one look - and they hate."

- "Medea”

Slajaunie This is so true even today. 6y
GingerAntics SO very true!!! 6y
Bookwomble @Slajaunie @GingerAntics Yes, it's quite an achievement to be socially and politically relevant after 2,500 years. 6y
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GingerAntics That really is. I guess there hasn‘t been that much human progress in all that time after all. People are still fuelled by hate of anything seen as “other.” 6y
Bookwomble @GingerAntics There are a number of themes in the play, one of which is Medea being an immigrant, thus not fully accepted in Greek society, which Jason uses as his reason (excuse?) for taking a (younger, richer, more socially connected) Greek wife. Medea's passion is remarked upon as being part of her "barbarian", unseemly and un-Greek character. Being 'foreign' makes the extremity of her crime more explicable in Jason's mind, I think. 6y
GingerAntics Oh my god, it‘s contemporary America without smartphones!!! 6y
Bookwomble @GingerAntics Ha,ha! Funnily enough, I just listened to an audio dramatisation with actor Fiona Shaw (Harry's awful aunt in the Potter films) in the title role, then an interview with her about her 2003 Broadway production, which was set in contemporary USA, and which had a smartphone prop! 📱😁 6y
GingerAntics 😂 6y
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Bookwomble
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Remembering I have another translation of Medea, I'm rereading them in tandem, which seems to have been a theme in the last few books I've read.

Simultaneously reading two translations of the same work (typically sentence by sentence) does make for an interesting, if drawn out, literary experience. I'm not inclined to do it with a massive tome! [👀 Quickly looks away from two editions of Crime and Punishment📚]

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S.Web
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Pickpick

I love Greek myth. These plays were riveting and highly entertaining. I loved them even though the main take away from all four plays is that women are heartless, revenge-driven sociopaths.

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