Richard Rutherford - Böcker

Heracles/ Iphigenia Among the Taurians/ Helen/ Ion/ Cyclops: Of these plays, only 'Heracles' truly belongs in the tragic sphere with its presentation of underserved suffering and divine malignity. The other plays flirt with comedy and comic themes. Their plots are ironic and complex with deception and elusion eventually leading to reconciliation between mother and son in 'Ion', brother and sister in 'Iphigenia', and husband and wife in 'Helen'. The comic vein is even stronger in the satyric'Cyclops' in which the giant's inebriation and subsequent violence are treated as humorous. Together, these plays demonstrate Euripides' challenge to the generic boundaries of Athenian drama.

Of all the ancient Greek tragedians, Euripides was the most sensitive to the lives of women and other outcasts in Athenian society, and Electra and Other Plays collects five plays demonstrating his talent for bringing to life their plight. This Penguin Classics edition is translated by John Davie with an introduction and notes by Richard Rutherford.Written during a period overshadowed by the fierce struggle for supremacy between Sparta and Euripides' native Athens, these five plays are haunted by the shadow of war - and in particular its impact on women. In Electra the children of Agamemnon take bloody revenge on their mother for murdering their father after his return from Troy, and Suppliant Women depicts the grieving mothers of those killed in battle. The other plays deal with the aftermath of the Trojan War for the defeated survivors, as Andromache shows Hector's widow as a trophy of war in the house of her Greek captor, and Hecabe portrays a defeated queen avenging the murder of her last-remaining son, while Trojan Women tells of the plight of the city's women in the hands of their victors.John Davie's compelling translations are accompanied by an introduction by Richard Rutherford describing the tragic genre and Euripides innovations, along with a chronology, prefaces to each play, notes, a bibliography and a glossary of names.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 Electra and Other Plays, you might like Euripides' Medea and Other Plays, also available in Penguin Classics.'The most intensely tragic of all the poets'Aristotle

Ovid's Metamorphoses have been seen to mark the culmination of the classical epic tradition, and a revolutionary transferral of narrative interest from warfare to love and fantasy. This introduction considers how Ovid defined and shaped his narrative, its cultural context, and its vivid depictions of the cruelty of jealous gods, the pathos of human love, and the imaginative fantasy of flight, monsters, magic, and illusion. Elaine Fantham provides a stimulating introduction to this marvelous and complex poem, and to the traditions it drew on and inspired.

Ovid's Metamorphoses have been seen to mark a culmination of the classical epic tradition and a revolutionary transferral of narrative interest from warfare to love and fantasy. This introduction considers how Ovid defined and shaped his narrative, its cultural context, and its vivid depictions of the cruelty of jealous gods, the pathos of human love, and the imaginative fantasy of flight, monsters, magic and illusion. Elaine Fantham provides a stimulating analysis of this marvellous and complex poem, and the traditions it built on and inspired.

This volume originated in a conference of the same title, held in Oxford in September 2006, to celebrate the 70th birthday of Peter Parsons, Regius Professor of Greek at Oxford from 1989 to 2003. The contributors, who are former pupils, colleagues or collaborators with Peter Parsons, share a deep admiration for him and his work. Peter Parsons has, throughout his career, been engaged in research on newly discovered papyrus texts, and such texts play an important part in this volume's discussions. He has also constantly sought to use these texts to illuminate the literary and cultural history of antiquity. The essays in this volume are suitably diverse, reflecting the broad interests of the honorand: they straddle prose and verse, literary and subliterary texts, addressing both theoretical issues and specific practical problems of interpretation which contribute to the difficulties faced in giving form and meaning to the diverse and fragmentary evidence of ancient literary history - to give some kind of partial unity to 'culture in pieces'. Broader topics considered include the methodology of editing fragments, the problems of identifying authorship (New Comedy being treated as a test case), the ambiguities of texts which may or may not be read as ironic, and the development of the Greek novel. Among major authors treated are Pindar, Euripides, Menander, Callimachus, and Ovid. The volume also includes an introduction outlining Peter Parsons's career and achievements, and a bibliography of his publications.

This accessible one-volume survey of the literature of Greece and Rome covers the period between Homer around 700 BC and Augustine around AD 410. Highlights what is important historically and of continuing interest and value in classical literature.An introduction by the editor presents essential information in a concise, accessible way.Each chapter focuses on a particular genre or area of literature.This structure allows readers to see continuities between different periods and to move easily between the Greek and Roman worlds.Includes extensive quotations in English.A timeline and an index of authors help to make the material as accessible as possible.

This accessible one-volume survey of the literature of Greece and Rome covers the period between Homer around 700 BC and Augustine around AD 410. Highlights what is important historically and of continuing interest and value in classical literature.An introduction by the editor presents essential information in a concise, accessible way.Each chapter focuses on a particular genre or area of literature.This structure allows readers to see continuities between different periods and to move easily between the Greek and Roman worlds.Includes extensive quotations in English.A timeline and an index of authors help to make the material as accessible as possible.

This is a revised and updated version of the survey on Homer which the author originally published in 1996. It provides a wide variety of readers with a clear and detailed introduction to the Iliad and the Odyssey, and to the problems which arise in dating, contextualising and interpreting these two epics, which are among the earliest poetic texts to come down to us from the ancient Greek world. A substantial introductory chapter discusses the so-called Homeric Question, the question of the identity and origins of 'Homer'. Among the important topics considered are the debate over oral composition, the structure, plot and themes of the two epics, and the religious and ethical ideas which figure in the poems; also discussed are characterisation, speeches, similes, symbolism and irony. An extensive bibliography gives expert guidance on these and many other aspects of these extraordinary poems.