Drama Ancient, Classical & Medieval
An Oresteia
Agamemnon by Aiskhylos; Elektra by Sophokles; Orestes by Euripides
- Publisher
- Farrar Straus & Giroux
- Initial publish date
- Mar 2010
- Category
- Ancient, Classical & Medieval, Religious & Liturgical, General
-
Hardback
- ISBN
- 9780865479029
- Publish Date
- Mar 2009
- List Price
- $31
-
Paperback / softback
- ISBN
- 9780865479166
- Publish Date
- Mar 2010
- List Price
- $24.5
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Description
In An Oresteia, the classicist Anne Carson combines three different versions of the tragedy of the house of Atreus — A iskhylos' Agamemnon, Sophokles' Elektra and Euripides' Orestes. After the murder of her daughter Iphigeneia by her husband, Agamemnon, Klytaimestra exacts a mother's revenge, murdering Agamemnon and his mistress, Kassandra. Displeased with Klytaimestra's actions, Apollo calls on her son, Orestes, to avenge his father's death with the help of his sister Elektra. In the end, Orestes is driven mad by the Furies for his bloody betrayal of family. Condemned to death by the people of Argos, he and Elektra must justify their actions — or flout society, justice and the gods.
Carson's translation combines contemporary language with the traditional structures and rhetoric of Greek tragedy, opening up this ancient tale of vengeance to a modern audience and revealing the essential wit and morbidity of the original plays.
About the authors
Anne Carson was born in Canada and teaches ancient Greek for a living. A former MacArthur Fellow, awards for her numerous books include the T.S. Eliot Prize and The Los Angeles Times Book Prize. Red Doc> was recently awarded the Griffin Poetry Prize and the inaugural Folio Prize. Her first full poetry collection, Short Talks, was published by Brick Books in 1992 and was presented as a new edition in 2015: SHORT TALKS: BRICK BOOKS CLASSICS 1.
