Orestes and Other Plays

Euripedes is too often an afterthought of Greek tragedy. Part of the reason is that the plays are very much tied up with the political environment of the time, part is that so little of the dialogue of the characters can be taken at face value, and sadly, a significant part of the neglect is from the fact that there is more of Euripedes left to read than Sophocles or Aeschylus. He's tougher to sum up or put on as a reading laurel. None of those are good reasons for passing him over. Euripedes is astonishingly modern. Characters behave like actual flawed and greedy people. The political analysis of crowd mentality and fear mongering is very insightful - this volume is a very powerful study of the post 9/11 years if read that way. There's just a lot going on. This particular translation is worth twice the money just for the introduction. Vellacott does a great job of describing the political situation relevant at the performance of each play. Even more important, the readings of the play are very sophisticated, often rescuing plays from mediocre critical analysis. An enjoyable thing to do is to read Cliff's Notes interpretation after reading Vellacott, and then throwing them away.

What a shame that no one has written a review of Vellacott's Penguin edition of "Orestes and Other Plays". These 6 plays are essential in Eurpipidean and Vellacott-ian studies! They are amazing versions, the best on the market after comparing them to multiple other versions. Vellacott includes fantastic introdutions and notes to: Orestes, Phoenecian Women, Suppliant Women, Children of Heracles, Andromache and Iphigenia in Aulis. Like I said in my other review, Vellacott and Penguin brought Euripides into our modern world, and it is really to him that we are able to appreciate the Great Euripides!