Mary Lefkowitz - Böcker

Modern readers find it hard to come to terms with the gods in Euripides' dramas. Readers try to dismiss them as a literary convention. Stage productions leave them out, especially in the cases when they appear ex machina. Instead, they place disproportionate emphasis on the harsh criticisms of the gods uttered by some of the characters in the dramas, and have sought to interpret Euripides ironically, viewing his portrayal of the cruel and capricious gods as a means of drawing attention to the deficiencies of ancient Greek religion. In their view Euripides' dramas seek to question the nature and sometimes even the very existence of traditional Greek gods.In Euripides and the Gods, classicist Mary Lefkowitz sets out to show that the tragedian is not undermining ancient religion, but rather describing with a brutal realism what the gods are like, impressing upon his mortal audience the limitations of human understanding. Writing the first extended treatment of these issues for a general audience, Lefkowitz provides a book that deals with all of Euripides' dramas, and argues for a more tolerant and nuanced understanding of ancient Greek religion. Euripides, like Homer, is making a statement about the nature of the world and human life, terrifying but accurate. She explains how the idea that Euripides was an atheist derives from ancient biographies that drew their evidence from comic poets, and shows why the doubts about the gods expressed by his characters must be understood in their dramatic context. Euripides and the Gods offers a compelling invitation to return to the dramatic masterpieces of Euripides with fresh eyes.

Many modern readers believe that, in his dramas, Euripides was questioning the nature and sometimes even the existence of the gods. In Euripides and the Gods, eminent classicist Mary K. Lefkowitz shows that the tragedian is not undermining ancient religion, but rather describing with a brutal realism what the gods are like, reminding his mortal audience of the limitations of human understanding. Although some scholars have begun to express similar views about the theology of individual plays, no one so far has written an extended treatment of these issues for a general audience who do not necessarily know ancient Greek. Lefkowitz will provide a book that will deal with all of his dramas, accessible to non-specialist readers, containing a more tolerant and nuanced understanding of ancient Greek religion: Euripides, like Homer, is making "a statement about the nature of the world and human life, terrible and dispassionate." That view of divinity was well known and understood in Euripides' own time. In spite of what has seemed to later critics his brutally realistic characterization of the gods, he was selected in virtually every year of his adult life to be one of the three poets allowed to put on a set of plays at the festival of Dionysus, and even after his death he remained the most popular and influential of the great playwrights in the Greek-speaking world. This would hardly have been the case if his portrayal of the gods appeared impious to the majority of his audiences. Like most of the author's distinguished publications in this field, the book will discuss a number of important related topics, including religion, philosophy, the surviving works of Euripides' contemporaries, and the theater and its significance to Greek society. The result will be a compelling invitation to return to the dramatic masterpieces of Euripides with fresh eyes.

Why the Greek myths, more than those of any other culture, continue to captivate usThe mythology of ancient Greece has fascinated readers for two millennia and has formed the basis of Western civilization. The Greek gods are a perennial source of delight because they seem so much like us: in their rages, their love affairs, and their obsession with honor, the gods often appear all too human.In Greek Gods, Human Lives, preeminent classicist Mary Lefkowitz reintroduces readers to the literature of ancient Greece. Lefkowitz demonstrates that these stories, although endlessly entertaining, are never frivolous. The Greek myths—as told by Homer, Ovid, Virgil, and many others—offer crucial lessons about human experience. Greek mythology makes vivid the fact that the gods control every aspect of the lives of mortals, but not in ways that modern audiences have properly understood. We can learn much from these myths, Lefkowitz shows, if we understand that they are stories about religious experience—about the meaning of divinity, the nature of justice, and the limitations of human knowledge. These myths spoke to ancient audiences and helped them to comprehend their world. With Mary Lefkowitz as an interpreter, these myths speak to us as well.