The Oresteia Agamemnon, The Libation Bearers and The Eumenides

by Aeschylus; Lloyd-Jones, Hugh

• ISBN13: 9781472526793
• ISBN10: 1472526791
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2014-06-19
• Publisher: Bloomsbury Academic

Summary

First performed in 458BC, Aeschylus's trilogy of plays - known collectively as The Oresteia - remains perhaps the great masterpiece of Ancient tragic drama. Telling the bloody story of the House of Atreus, Aeschylus's tragedy stages an eternal debate about justice and revenge that remains relevant more than two millenia later.

Now available in the Bloomsbury Revelations series in this classic and authoritative translation by Hugh Lloyd-Jones, this book contains the text of all three plays - Agamemnon, The Libation Bearers and The Eumenides - with extensive scholarly annotation throughout.

Author Biography

Aeschylus (525-456 BC) The father of Greek tragic drama, usually considered the first great writer in the Western theatrical tradition. Only seven plays, of over 70 known titles, are extant. These are The Persians (472 BC), Seven Against Thebes (469 BC), Prometheus Bound (c. 460 BC), The Suppliant Women (c. 460 BC), and the Oresteia trilogy (458 BC), comprising Agamemnon, Choephoroi, and Eumenides. He also wrote numerous satyr plays, which have only survived in fragmentary form. Aeschylus's work is powerful and operatic, using majestic but often innovative language. His attitude to Greek society and religion was generally conservative, although he boldly depicted the sufferings of men and woman when moral systems, and the gods themselves, are in conflict. Legend says he was killed by a tortoise dropped by an eagle (to break the shell) on his bald head (mistaken for a stone). His tombstone makes no mention of his literary works, referring only to his service at the Battle of Marathon (490 BC).

Sir Hugh Lloyd-Jones (1922-2009) was Regius Professor of Greek at the University of Oxford, UK. Described by the Telegraph as 'one of the foremost classical scholars of his generation,' his translations included the plays of Sophocles and the fragments of Aeschylus.

Table of Contents

Introduction 1. Agamemnon Bibliography 2. The Choephoroe ('The Libation Bearer') Bibliography 3. Eumenides ('The Kindly Ones') Bibliography Appendix