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4.46 AVERAGE
4.46 AVERAGE
challenging
dark
emotional
reflective
fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
adventurous
emotional
funny
lighthearted
tense
fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
Loveable characters:
No
Evil is a pressure that shapes us to itself.
some things: the word play, the sudden shifts between courtly and contemporary language, the rhymes, the not rhymes, the shifts between the wildly different authors and how it still ties together even when it's unhinged, both in its content and its language.
i'd read some other translation before (of aiskhylos' oresteia) but this one, i think, struck me more precisely because of the wild leaps in language and tone. some of it was heartbreaking, some of it was hilarious, most of it was always interesting.
some gems, because i like collecting quotes:
i'd read some other translation before (of aiskhylos' oresteia) but this one, i think, struck me more precisely because of the wild leaps in language and tone. some of it was heartbreaking, some of it was hilarious, most of it was always interesting.
some gems, because i like collecting quotes:
agamemnon
Sing sorrow, sorrow, but let the good prevail.
Good sense comes the hard way.
And the grace of the gods
(I'm pretty sure)
is a grace that comes by violence.
But the future—who knows? It's here soon enough.
Why grieve in advance?
Whatever turns up, I hope it's happy—
elektra
I cannot not grieve.
For myself, for the whole generation of us,
I have tears to keep,
I have ashes to weep.
I am the shape you made me.
Filth teaches filth.
orestes
PYLADES: I'll take care of you.
ORESTES: It's rotten work.
PYLADES: Not to me. Not if it's you.
Where I come from people say bad shit happening
when they mean death.
Another quaint barbarian idiom is real bad shit happening—
that covers blood on the floors
and a houseful of swords.
SLAVE: You won't kill me?
ORESTES: Go.
SLAVE: Fabulous.
ORESTES: Unless I reconsider.
SLAVE: Not fabulous.
Far cleverer people have reviewed this book than me. Suffice it to say that this is not a standard Oresteia, more a shift in perspective of the same characters in the same tragic event as it progresses into time and bleeds into more lives, scene by painful scene.
What Anne Carson does here is breathe vivid, wriggling, mischievous life into these three tales. It was worth doing.
What Anne Carson does here is breathe vivid, wriggling, mischievous life into these three tales. It was worth doing.
adventurous
dark
tense
fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
Anne Carson's Oresteia
Review of the Faber & Faber (2009) hardcover edition
Although this edition is primarily credited to Aeschylus (or Aiskhylos, in the pronunciation friendly spelling provided by Carson) it properly belongs to Anne Carson herself. This is not "The Oresteia" of Aiskhylos but is instead "An Oresteia" created by anthologizing the primary play of the original trilogy with Sophokles "Elektra" and Euripides "Orestes". It thus tells the same story but with the additional slant of later historical perspective.
As detailed in the introduction, Carson completed her trilogy at the request of Brian Kulick of New York City's Classic Stage Company who convinced her that:
Carson's translation takes a few unorthodox steps. She leaves the Greek laments and cries of woe in the original. So instead of standard clichés such as "Oh woe is me," you see expressions of "OIMOI" which may lend themselves to more exaggerated shrieks of despair and desolation by the actors. She also injects passages of 21st century expression in the translation, which may themselves seem dated in later readings. For instance, describing Helen of Troy as a "weapon of mass destruction" seems to place the translation in a certain era of the news cycle to present-day ears. Still, all in all, this was a refreshing and exciting view of one of our earliest epic tragedy trilogies.
Review of the Faber & Faber (2009) hardcover edition
Although this edition is primarily credited to Aeschylus (or Aiskhylos, in the pronunciation friendly spelling provided by Carson) it properly belongs to Anne Carson herself. This is not "The Oresteia" of Aiskhylos but is instead "An Oresteia" created by anthologizing the primary play of the original trilogy with Sophokles "Elektra" and Euripides "Orestes". It thus tells the same story but with the additional slant of later historical perspective.
As detailed in the introduction, Carson completed her trilogy at the request of Brian Kulick of New York City's Classic Stage Company who convinced her that:
In Aiskhylos’ hands the story of the house of Atreus is designed to end in a valedictory celebration of Athenian democracy and its newborn sense of justice; when Sophokles takes over the tale it becomes more complex and contradictory; with Euripides the design is completely turned on its head. We follow a trajectory from myth to mockery. What happened to effect this? History happened. Aiskhylos composed his Oresteia shortly after Athens’ victory at the battle of Marathon which marked the height of Athenian military and cultural supremacy; Euripides finished his Orestes almost a hundred years later as Athens headed for ruin due to her protracted involvement in the Peloponnesian War.… The house of Atreus, for these tragedians, was a way of talking about the fate of Athens.
Carson's translation takes a few unorthodox steps. She leaves the Greek laments and cries of woe in the original. So instead of standard clichés such as "Oh woe is me," you see expressions of "OIMOI" which may lend themselves to more exaggerated shrieks of despair and desolation by the actors. She also injects passages of 21st century expression in the translation, which may themselves seem dated in later readings. For instance, describing Helen of Troy as a "weapon of mass destruction" seems to place the translation in a certain era of the news cycle to present-day ears. Still, all in all, this was a refreshing and exciting view of one of our earliest epic tragedy trilogies.