Product Description

Based on the conviction that only translators who write poetry themselves can properly recreate the celebrated and timeless tragedies of Aeschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides, the Greek Tragedy in New Translations series offers new translations that go beyond the literal meaning of the Greek in order to evoke the poetry of the originals. Under the general editorship of Peter Burian and Alan Shapiro, each volume includes a critical introduction, commentary on the text, full stage directions, and a glossary of the mythical and geographical references in the play.
Although it has been at times overshadowed by his more famous Oedipus Tyrannus and Antigone, Sophocles' Electra is remarkable for its extreme emotions and taut drama.
Electra recounts the murders of Clytemnestra and Aegisthus by Clytemnestra's son Orestes, to avenge their murder of his father Agamemnon, commander of the Greeks at Troy, upon his return home. Sophocles' version is presented from the viewpoint of Electra, Orestes' sister, who laments her father, bears witness to her mother's crime, and for years endures her mother's scorn. Despite her overwhelming passion for just revenge, Electra admits that her own actions are shameful. When Orestes arrives at last, her mood shifts from grief to joy, as Orestes carries out the bloody vengeance.
Sophocles presents this story as a savage though necessary act of vengeance, vividly depicting Electra's grief, anger, and exultation. This translation equals the original in ferocity of expression, and leaves intact the inarticulate cries of suffering and joy that fill the play.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #186345 in Books
• Published on: 2001-04-19
• Released on: 2001-01-01
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 144 pages

From Publishers Weekly
Every era needs the classics on its own terms, so Sophocles' Electra, translated by Anne Carson (The Beauty of the Husband; Forecasts, Dec. 18, 2000), should prove very popular among newcomers and seasoned readers of the sublime dramatist's brutal drama, as well as among Carson's many fans. While Carson renders the book in her signature free verse, her major innovation is the phonetic preservation of Electra's "far from formulaic" screams: "OIMOI," "O TALAINA" and "PHEU PHEU" among them. As Carson writes in her excellent translator's preface, they are not stock ejaculations like "Alas!" or "Woe is me!," but "bones of sound" emitted by the daughter who finds herself cheering her mother's execution. Though Oxford's stock existentialist cover looks like something from the height of '50s abstract angst and the book's paper is pulpy, expect strong sales.

Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

Review
"Carson's interpretation of Electra conveys the uniqueness, the vibrancy, and the tradition that must have been there for the original audience. The characters speak in a style which simultaneously juxtaposes the metrical and the colloquial....[The] changing meter is a wonderful and successful way of revealing the psychic tumult that keeps Electra on the edges of madness and violence."--Rain Taxi Online

Language Notes
Text: English (translation)
Original Language: Greek

Customer Reviews

Sophocles looks at the psychological dimensions of Electra
The murder of Clytemnestra by her son Orestes is unique in Greek mythology in that it is the one story for which we have extant versions by all three of the great tragic poets. Consequently, it is insightful to notice how each tragedy privileges different parts of the story. In "Choephoroe" ("The Libation Bearers") by Aeschylus, the middle part of his "Orestia" trilogy, Orestes is obedient to the gods in avenging the death of his father and the pivotal scene is the confrontation between mother and son when Clytemnestra begs for her life. In "Electra" by Euripides the title character has to persuade Orestes to go through with the deed and the dramatic confrontation is now between mother and daughter. In the Sophocles version of "Electra" the emphasis is on the psychological dimensions of the situation; after all, it is from this play that Freud developed his concept of the Electra complex.

Towards that end Sophocles creates a character, Chrysothemis, another sister to both Orestes and Electra. The situation is that Orestes is assumed to be dead and the issues is whether the obligation to avenge the death of Agamemnon now falls to his daughters. There is an attendant irony here in that Clytemnestra justified the murder of her husband in part because of his sacrifice of their oldest daughter Iphigenia before sailing off to the Trojan War (the curse on the House of Atreus, which involves Aegisthus on his own accord and not simply as Clytemnestra's lover, is important but clearly secondary). The creation of Chrysothemis allows for Sophocles to write a dialogue that covers both sides of the dispute. Electra argues that the daughters must assume the burden and avenge their father while Chrysothemis takes the counter position.

Sophocles does come up with several significant twists on the Aeschylus version. For one thing, Sophocles reverses the order of the two murders and has Clytemnestra slain first, which sets up an interesting scene when Aegisthus gets to revel over what he believes to be the corpse of Orestes and makes the death of the usurper the final scene of the play. This becomes part of the most significant difference between the Sophocles version and the others. Whereas Orestes emerges from the skene distraught after the murder of his mother in "Cheophoroe" and is repentant in the Euripides version of "Electra," Sophocles has Orestes calmly declaring that all in the house is well.

Electra is not as central a character to the drama as she is in the Euripides version, mainly because she does not have a functional purpose in this tragedy. Her main purpose is to lament over the death of the father and the supposed death of her brother. She does not provide Orestes with a sense of resolve because in this version he does not consult the oracles to learn whether or not he should kill his mother but rather how he can do the deed. Still, the part of Electra has enormous potential for performance. Ironically, this "Electra" is the least interesting of the three, despite the fact Freud made it infamous: by his standards the Euripides play speaks more to the desire of a daughter to see her mother dead, but since Sophocles wrote "Oedipus the King" it probably seemed fair to point to his version of this tale as well.

A play of revenge.
In this play, Electra, the daughter of Agamemnon and Clytemnestra, awaits the return of her brother Orestes so that he can avenge the murder of their father. I think that many scholars have tended to misread this play. It is a play about Electra, not about Orestes or Clytemnestra or Aegisthus. And, it is a tragedy. Should one allow hatred to rule their own lives to such an extent as seen in Electra, even when one is in the right? A number of scholars regard this play as inferior to Aeschylus discussion of the same events.

Sophocles was no amateur
Great drama. I'm not a huge "classics" fan and yet I enjoyed this. If you're into Greek mythology and like flowery language and prose (and lots of melodrama) you will enjoy this. HINT: don't read these plays line-by-line like a poem - I find that it's more difficult to follow them that way. Read this like you would a novel.