Grief Lessons: Four Plays: Four Plays By Euripi (New York Review Books (Paperback))

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Those murders take place offstage, too, in a confusion of violence that the chorus can hardly describe. The ending of this play is deeply strange and off-putting: after a play full of tragedy in her life, Hekabe is told she will be turned into a dog. There is a sense of inevitable death that pervades this play: taking place during a mythical war, it serves on some level as a reflection of the destruction of society that Euripides himself would have feared during the Peloponnesian Wars. Perhaps here Euripides asks the viewer (or reader) to ask questions of their heroes, and to reconsider the narratives we already know about our idols. Some might criticize Carson for not reflecting the distinct differences in the grammar, syntax, tone, and diction of these ancient authors.

That engineer, Faisal bin Ali Jaber, lost a nephew and a brother-in-law to a drone strike, and Carson unleashes an avalanche of grief and anger that suffocates any attempt at moral evasion. I would honestly never seek out and spend a good few hours reading greek plays, but Anne Carson does such a wonderful job with translating the works, that it felt like I was reading modern poetry (also so many lines I saw on Pinterest). In her poem “Clive Song,” the underworld that is Guantánamo Bay seems to have its own pitiless Hades and bureaucratic Cerberus. Old man side by side with old man-as our young spears once stood side by side in war, no shame to our glorious country. The volume also contains brief introductions by Carson to each of the plays along with two remarkable framing essays: “Tragedy: A Curious Art Form” and “Why I Wrote Two Plays About Phaidra.

i began with silence and secrecy - there’s no trusting the tongue, it loved to punish others and draw disaster in itself.

Anne Carson and Euripides keep things moving at a brisk pace here through all four plays even when the plot is at its most absurd. Adementus’ wife was taken by death in exchange for his life, but Hercules manages to save her from the underworld. Whereas, if you ask Dirphys, your own local mountain, to praise you, she couldn't name a single deed of yours. But for those who want a more literal rending of Euripides text it might be better to stick with earlier versions.The only recompense is friendship--his friendship with Theseus, in fact, saves Herakles from murdering himself.

These plays spit in the eye of anyone who claims, "It all worked out for the best," or "There's a reason for everything. Catharsis, by his definition, is a type of cleaning: "we experience, then expurgate these emotions". And while Hippolytos himself is flawed given his obsessive abstinence, it would be hard not to see Phaidra as the heroine, who struggles between what she knows is best for everyone, and what she wants most of all. This was my personal least favorite of the plays I read for this collection, possibly because of how thoughtless it is: no decision is made by any character that caused this ill, simply a trickery of the gods.the divided house ultimately comes together again, heracles can carouse for only so long, heracles must end up doing what he does best, being a hero of some kind, whatever the cost, being heracles.