L. P. E. Parker - Böcker

A comedy of Aristophanes was in large measure a musical performance, and his lyric verse covers a wide range of styles - from popular song to parody of tragedy. The music is lost, and our only way of recovering something of the experience of an Athenian audience is by studying the rhythms of the poetry. This book provides a full text, with scansions, of the lyric of the surviving plays, and an introduction to the different rhythms used by Aristophanes, their origins, and literary associations. Dr Parker pays particular attention to showing the role played by lyric metre in the structure of the plays and to distinguishing the different levels of musical style, thus illustrating the integral part metre plays in Aristophanes' dramatic art and satire. She also discusses fully the metrical aspects of textual problems in Aristophanes' lyric, and a section of the introduction traces the evolution of the study of Aristophanes' metres and the influence this has on the text.

Alcestis is one of Euripides' richest and most brilliant - as well as most controversial - plays. But, apart from D. J. Conacher's student text, no annotated edition in English has appeared for more than fifty years. The present work is designed to aid close reading and to serve as an introduction to the serious study of the play in its various aspects. The introduction covers the background to the story in myth and folktale, its treatment by other writers from antiquity to the present, the critical reception of Euripides' play, and its textual transmission and metres.

Alcestis is one of Euripides' richest and most brilliant - as well as most controversial - plays. But, apart from D. J. Conacher's student text, no annotated edition in English has appeared for more than fifty years. The present work is designed to aid close reading and to serve as an introduction to the serious study of the play in its various aspects. The introduction covers the background to the story in myth and folktale, its treatment by other writers from antiquity to the present, the critical reception of Euripides' play, and its textual transmission and metres. The notes are designed in particular to help readers who have been learning Greek for a relatively short time. More advanced matter, such as discussion of textual problems, is placed in square brackets at the end of the note.

Euripides' Iphigenia in Tauris is the tale of how two children of Agamemnon whose lives have been blighted in youth are brought together for mutual salvation and for the healing of the calamitous house of Pelops. Aristotle makes more complimentary references to the play than any other Attic tragedy, apart from Sophocles' Oedipus the King, and even less favourable critics recognize the extraordinary skill of its construction.Comprising an introduction, the Greek text, and commentary, this volume is designed to be useful to a wide range of readers, facilitating a close and accurate reading of one of Euripides' more frequently studied plays. The introduction explores earlier and later re-interpretations of the story of Iphigenia, the adoption of narrative motifs in New Comedy, Roman comedy, and the ancient novel, differing critical assessments, and more technical information on metre and textual transmission. The commentary features guidance on vocabulary and syntax, while more advanced material, including textual discussion, is included in parenthesis.