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savaging's review against another edition
4.0
Good to read these big old griefs. But I always found myself siding against the protagonist, on behalf of the villains. I'll take the monsters over the Herakles who kills them to "make the world safe for civilization." I'm squarely on team Hecabe and Phaedra. And Admetus -- who can stand this guy?
badgalnat's review
3.0
3 stars. I have a feeling that Anne Carson is on the way to becoming one of my favourite authors. Euripides however, I don’t care much for. I enjoyed reading Anne’s prefaces more than the plays themselves. she’s poetic, she’s insightful, she derives meaning from these plays that feels genuinely human, rather than just ‘analytical’.
anyways, here’s some of my favourite parts:
(Preface) Why does tragedy exist? Because you are full of rage. Why are you full of rage? Because you are full of grief.
(Preface) He was also concerned with people as people — with what it’s like to be a human being in a family, in a fantasy, in a longing, in a mistake. (UGH I love this one)
AMPHITYON: Be calm. Wipe their tears and soothe them with stories, a bit of make believe. Even catastrophes grow weary, no wind can keep blasting all the time.
THESEUS: There is no cloud so black it could hide your misfortune. Why do you wave me off? You fear to pollute me? I don’t care about that. I’ll share your bad luck — I shared your good luck once, when you brought me from the dead world back to life. Hateful to me is a gratitude that grows old. A friend who enjoys your prosperity but refuses to sail with your grief.
THESEUS: Stop. Give me your hand. I am your friend.
HERAKLES: I fear to stain your clothes with blood.
THESEUS: Stain them, I don’t care.
(UGHHHHH THIS ONE KILLS ME IN EVERY GOOD WAY POSSIBLE)
HERAKLES: Whoever values wealth or strength more than friends is mad.
HEKABE: (talking about his wife) This one is my joy. This one is my forgetting of evils. She comforts my soul.
(Preface) I suppose his intention is to pray for a life of consistent purity from beginning to end. But what beginning, what end? Whose life can end as it began, as if it were a thing apart from time, as if flesh did not change.
PHAIDRA: What is this thing they call falling in love?
NURSE: Something absolutely sweet and absolutely bitter at the same time.
NURSE: Perfection is not for mortals.
anyways, here’s some of my favourite parts:
(Preface) Why does tragedy exist? Because you are full of rage. Why are you full of rage? Because you are full of grief.
(Preface) He was also concerned with people as people — with what it’s like to be a human being in a family, in a fantasy, in a longing, in a mistake. (UGH I love this one)
AMPHITYON: Be calm. Wipe their tears and soothe them with stories, a bit of make believe. Even catastrophes grow weary, no wind can keep blasting all the time.
THESEUS: There is no cloud so black it could hide your misfortune. Why do you wave me off? You fear to pollute me? I don’t care about that. I’ll share your bad luck — I shared your good luck once, when you brought me from the dead world back to life. Hateful to me is a gratitude that grows old. A friend who enjoys your prosperity but refuses to sail with your grief.
THESEUS: Stop. Give me your hand. I am your friend.
HERAKLES: I fear to stain your clothes with blood.
THESEUS: Stain them, I don’t care.
(UGHHHHH THIS ONE KILLS ME IN EVERY GOOD WAY POSSIBLE)
HERAKLES: Whoever values wealth or strength more than friends is mad.
HEKABE: (talking about his wife) This one is my joy. This one is my forgetting of evils. She comforts my soul.
(Preface) I suppose his intention is to pray for a life of consistent purity from beginning to end. But what beginning, what end? Whose life can end as it began, as if it were a thing apart from time, as if flesh did not change.
PHAIDRA: What is this thing they call falling in love?
NURSE: Something absolutely sweet and absolutely bitter at the same time.
NURSE: Perfection is not for mortals.
arianna_lee's review
challenging
dark
emotional
funny
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.0
finalgirlfall's review
5.0
this collection of tragedies hurt me deeply. in the introduction for one of the plays, carson calls euripides "unpleasant." i have to say, she's right. all of these plays were fundamentally very...wrong, very much against human nature.
casparb's review
4.0
Exquisite!4.5. Lots of love for this - Carson takes plays that are quite possibly fairly tepid and extracts an extraordinary dynamism and an excruciating yet ætherial reverberation that somehow manages to read, beautifully.
All four plays are magnificently adapted though I play favourites for Hippolytos and Alkestis. The language of Hippolytos in particular delights me -
//I long for the secret sunwalked places,
and a god to take me up high...
-and predictably I love the way the sea comes about here and the mute heroico-tragical quality of Poseidon:
Then swelling and spattering foam and sea on every side
it went towards shore where the chariot was.
At the height of the surge
it put forth a bull - wild weird thing!
And the whole place was filled with voice-
Shivers in the voice. Wonderful and intriguingly familiar. It was nice to dip into Foucault's History of Sexuality (2) for that play as well. Fruitful! Dissemination! Polyvalence!
So Anne here has done me well thank you Anne thank you Kate (especially the annotations!!). I'm keen for AC's Antigone and beyond.
All four plays are magnificently adapted though I play favourites for Hippolytos and Alkestis. The language of Hippolytos in particular delights me -
//I long for the secret sunwalked places,
and a god to take me up high...
-and predictably I love the way the sea comes about here and the mute heroico-tragical quality of Poseidon:
Then swelling and spattering foam and sea on every side
it went towards shore where the chariot was.
At the height of the surge
it put forth a bull - wild weird thing!
And the whole place was filled with voice-
Shivers in the voice. Wonderful and intriguingly familiar. It was nice to dip into Foucault's History of Sexuality (2) for that play as well. Fruitful! Dissemination! Polyvalence!
So Anne here has done me well thank you Anne thank you Kate (especially the annotations!!). I'm keen for AC's Antigone and beyond.
sarahndipity_reads's review
challenging
emotional
informative
inspiring
reflective
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? N/A
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
5.0
Just Anne Carson proving once again that she’s indeed ✨that girl✨. Literally every book she writes is a 5/5. I wish I had a morsel of her brain power bc I’d be unstoppable. She’s pure genius and I adore her.
whalecomrades's review
4.5
I loved the way these four plays came together and told a story about the different griefs people can experience. I especially loved hekabe. There was something so real about the revenge still not soothing the grief for her
poetic_liz's review
4.5
Nothing to say. Euripides rarely disappoints, Anne Carson never disappoints.
I'm glad I finally got to read these translations.
I'm glad I finally got to read these translations.
delaneylp's review
challenging
dark
informative
reflective
4.5
LOVED this. no one is doing it like anne carson. favorite play was herakles, but I really enjoyed them all.
chrisdech's review
5.0
One of the awkward parts of reviewing collections like this is that each play's quality is independent of the other, so I can really only judge this collection on what is actually contained, and the translation work done.
In that regard, Carson does a fantastic job with these plays and has cemented herself in my opinion as the finest translator since Robert Fagles. Her word choice is simple, but raw and powerful, especially in Herakles and Hekabe.
Carson's essay on tragedy, and Euripides's open letter on why he wrote two plays about Phaidra are both fine additions to these four plays, and help round out what is presented.
As for what is contained, I am a little too lazy to fully articulate how I feel about them, but they are all well worth the read, and I'll leave reviews of those separately. The plays collected, in addition to the two mentioned above, are Hippolytos and Alkestis, all of which are great places to start when reading Euripides.
Herakles is a fantastic play that I think fully captures the tragedy of someone great brought low, and by no fault of their own. And in for the most part, Herakles really is guilty of nothing and did not ask to be born a demigod with powerful enemies. And yet, he cannot help but be the hero that he is, which perhaps indirectly leads to his demise. 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. Moreover, Euripides forces the reader to consider what to do after grief and trauma, and argues that the only way out is to continue living. 9/10
Hekabe is another fantastic play where a character who is guilty of nothing (at least completely innocent, up until the end of the play) is brought low by forces beyond their control. Here, I think Euripides chooses a different route, and while he still argues that the only way to combat grief is to continue living, here he adds that to continue living is to spurn fate and destiny itself. Hekabe is a woman driven to drastic ends, but for her, any action is drastic because she has truly lost everything by this point, and cannot lose much more (besides Kassandra, but she is essentially lost to Hekabe). 10/10
I think the primary theme between these two plays is that clarity in grief exists for everyone, be it through friends, or through drastic changes brought on by oneself. Now, onto the other two.
Hippolytos is a play where the title figure is arguably not the protagonist, but rather Phaidra is. Phaidra, who cannot help her attraction; Phaidra, who cannot help but feel shame; Phaidra, who cannot help but be who she is and try as she may, loses the most in this play. 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. And while I think the ending falls a little flat, Phaidra really is the star of this play for me. 8/10
Finally, Alkestis, the odd one out of these plays due to being a tragicomedy. Another play where it's the gods who cause suffering, not other people, perhaps to illustrate the random misfortune of reality. Anyways, Alkestis is a fantastic character despite how little she speaks (literally, by the end), resembling Megara in Herakles. Admetos and his father Pheres are both unlikeable in this play, but Admetos is a little more forgivable due to his position being a unique one of unsure standing. Nevertheless, the tragedy and beauty of Alkestis's sacrifice despite not having to is fantastic and juxtaposed rather nicely with the dudebro attitude of Herakles. 8/10
Overall it's hard to score this, but I think I'll make it a 5/5 just because I'm feeling generous.
In that regard, Carson does a fantastic job with these plays and has cemented herself in my opinion as the finest translator since Robert Fagles. Her word choice is simple, but raw and powerful, especially in Herakles and Hekabe.
Carson's essay on tragedy, and Euripides's open letter on why he wrote two plays about Phaidra are both fine additions to these four plays, and help round out what is presented.
As for what is contained, I am a little too lazy to fully articulate how I feel about them, but they are all well worth the read, and I'll leave reviews of those separately. The plays collected, in addition to the two mentioned above, are Hippolytos and Alkestis, all of which are great places to start when reading Euripides.
Herakles is a fantastic play that I think fully captures the tragedy of someone great brought low, and by no fault of their own. And in for the most part, Herakles really is guilty of nothing and did not ask to be born a demigod with powerful enemies. And yet, he cannot help but be the hero that he is, which perhaps indirectly leads to his demise. 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. Moreover, Euripides forces the reader to consider what to do after grief and trauma, and argues that the only way out is to continue living. 9/10
Hekabe is another fantastic play where a character who is guilty of nothing (at least completely innocent, up until the end of the play) is brought low by forces beyond their control. Here, I think Euripides chooses a different route, and while he still argues that the only way to combat grief is to continue living, here he adds that to continue living is to spurn fate and destiny itself. Hekabe is a woman driven to drastic ends, but for her, any action is drastic because she has truly lost everything by this point, and cannot lose much more (besides Kassandra, but she is essentially lost to Hekabe). 10/10
I think the primary theme between these two plays is that clarity in grief exists for everyone, be it through friends, or through drastic changes brought on by oneself. Now, onto the other two.
Hippolytos is a play where the title figure is arguably not the protagonist, but rather Phaidra is. Phaidra, who cannot help her attraction; Phaidra, who cannot help but feel shame; Phaidra, who cannot help but be who she is and try as she may, loses the most in this play. 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. And while I think the ending falls a little flat, Phaidra really is the star of this play for me. 8/10
Finally, Alkestis, the odd one out of these plays due to being a tragicomedy. Another play where it's the gods who cause suffering, not other people, perhaps to illustrate the random misfortune of reality. Anyways, Alkestis is a fantastic character despite how little she speaks (literally, by the end), resembling Megara in Herakles. Admetos and his father Pheres are both unlikeable in this play, but Admetos is a little more forgivable due to his position being a unique one of unsure standing. Nevertheless, the tragedy and beauty of Alkestis's sacrifice despite not having to is fantastic and juxtaposed rather nicely with the dudebro attitude of Herakles. 8/10
Overall it's hard to score this, but I think I'll make it a 5/5 just because I'm feeling generous.