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gabrielrobartes's review against another edition
3.0
'Ajax' and 'Electra' are splendid. 'Women of Trachis' and 'Philoctetes' are a little harder to love.
madfil's review against another edition
5.0
Ajax: 5 stars
The Women Of Trachis: 3 stars
Electra: 5 stars
Philoctetes: 5 stars
The Women Of Trachis: 3 stars
Electra: 5 stars
Philoctetes: 5 stars
elydy's review against another edition
4.0
I found these more compelling than i thought I would - the plays are snappy and emotionally charged! Fascinating as always to read something so ancient.
ianmrowland's review against another edition
emotional
mysterious
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? N/A
- Strong character development? N/A
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.0
Impossible for me to rate so an average rating is given. This is my first time reading classical Greek drama and found it enjoyable and captivating. The plays all relate to the Trojan war in some guise or other, even the Thracian Women sets up the denouement of Philoctetes with the death of Heracles. The style is different and allows one to see how drama has changed over the centuries and the material adds to one’s understanding of Greek myths.
Very enjoyable
Very enjoyable
lukija's review against another edition
5.0
Olen niin iloinen, että Teos kustantaa näitä antiikin kirjallisuuden käännöksiä. Jälleen yksi todella tyylikäs kokoelma. Nämä Sofokleen aiemmin suomentamattomat tragediat ovat huippuja (ainakin minulle ja joo... mä todella fanitan antiikin kirjallisuutta). Paljon inhimillisiä tunteita tiiviissä ilmaisussa ja lukija joutuu käymään läpi eettisiä/moraalisia pohdintoja lukukokemuksen aikana. Huvitti yksi deus ex machina loppu. Kokonaisuudessaan laadukkaasti toimitettu näytelmätekstien kokonaisuus.
Kirjoitin tästä myös blogiini: https://kosminenk.blogspot.com/2021/07/sofokles-traakhiin-neidot-aias.html
Kirjoitin tästä myös blogiini: https://kosminenk.blogspot.com/2021/07/sofokles-traakhiin-neidot-aias.html
sabregirl's review against another edition
4.0
I only had to read Electra for my Mythology class but I wish I had more time to read the other stories. This version was vastly more entertaining that the Orestia which I had previously and it was only a retake on the second play from the Trilogy. This one was much more to the point and fixed a lot of the loop holes present in the other stories.
levininja's review against another edition
5.0
I liked this collection of plays even better than the more well-known collection of Sophocles' plays that Oxford prints (which had the three plays Oedipus, Oedipus at Colonus, and Antigone).
1. Ajax
I read this as basically the story about how a great, renowned person can have a great life, but then end it poorly if he allows himself to be eaten up by entitlement and a desire for revenge. Ajax goes literally insane at the end of his life, ends up committing degrading acts, and when he realizes what he has done, he (you guessed it) kills himself (as is mandatory in all Greek tragedies). Others are angry at him and briefly consider disrespecting his body (by not burying it) but, this is wrong to do even to one's enemies, and so they do consent to bury it. There is a really good peaceful bittersweet ending to how Ajax dies.
But with that said, I'm not going to go into as much detail on this play, mostly because I just want to get to the other three.
2. Women of Trachis
This should really have been called Deianeira. It's the story of the jilted wife, who has gotten older and lost some of the beauty of her youth, her husband (Heracles) is always away, and then (in this case) he sends home a recently captured younger woman, Iole, to be his new concubine (basically). Unfortunately, when Deianeira first meets Iole, she takes pity on Iole and promises to take good care of her, before realizing exactly who Iole is to her husband. She is a woman of her word though.
This is an under-told story, if I can make up that word. I'm surprised at how many good proto-feminist stories that Sophocles told. It really focuses on the pain of Deianeira and I found myself really feeling for her. I felt for Iole, too, who had no choice in the matter.
But then on top of that pain, Deianeira makes a mistake. She uses a supposed magic potion on her husband (indirectly, by applying it to part of a robe that she sends to Heracles to wear). However, when Heracles wears it and the potion comes into contact with his chest, it eats away at it and slowly kills him; it's literally eating his heart out. He thinks she intentionally tried to kill him. She discovers what has happened and that she was tricked by the person who gave her this "magic potion," a centaur who was actually enacting a final act of vengeance when he gave it to her.
When she realizes what she has done (she has actually killed the very person that she was trying to draw close to her), she kills herself (as all Greek tragedies are mandated to end). This story just really strikes so close to home. This is a universal powerful truth. When we try to control others it usually backfires and we get the very opposite of what we wanted. It also burns especially to have insult added to injury because she was already in such a terrible position. To be so terribly treated by someone but to still love them and want them to love you--that's a hard thing that many people have experienced. I am filled with empathy for these stories.
These are the kind of stories that need to be told more. When I was a kid I was told the myths that appealed to boys/men, but there are myths that were written that appeal much more to the experience of girls/women. We need to bring this part of our cannon much more to the forefront, alongside the others.
3. Electra
This is one of the best stories that I have read of Sophocles so far. I say this despite the fact that Electra, the hero, is really quite un-empathetic in many ways. Her father, King Agamemnon, was murdered by her mother and her affair partner who then became her new husband afterwards. To add insult to injury, Electra has then had to live with her mother and step-father for years and years. She has never stopped grieving for her father, which has made them very angry with her, and she's almost never allowed to leave the house, etc.
She has been waiting all of these years for her brother to grow up in a distant city and then come back and avenge her father's death. The play is largely about that happening, and when he does get revenge on both perpetrators at the end, it's satisfying--although it's interesting, the revenge actually happens off camera: you hear it happening instead of seeing it, but somehow this only makes it more riveting. It actually feels like there are elements of horror in this play.
It has traces of Antigone. Again, you have a young woman who loves her brother greatly and who is grieving a family member who has been killed and disrespected, and continues to grieve them in the morally right way despite that having majorly negative consequences for herself. She's not as relatable as Antigone because she is still grieving after maybe 20 years or something, and one can see her being annoying about it. When her mother comes on scene and you hear about why she killed her husband, you actually start to relate to her mother a bit--although you still don't "root" for her, you are able to at least understand her perspective.
In fact, this play really doesn't have a "side" almost, even though there's the very obvious "side" of Electra and her brother Orestes getting revenge on Electra's mother and stepfather, at the same time, every single character is actually humanized, their perspective is shown in such a way that you can understand them a little. The stepfather is perhaps the least relatable. But you really get a taste of pretty much all of the characters. And when the revenge finally happens, it's not portrayed as some positive healing thing...I interpreted it as being portrayed as a horrific fact.
Electra shows a different side of herself when interacting with several different people. She's almost a series of reactions to other people. She doesn't change up through the end of the play; she never seems to come to the realization that revenge will not heal her.
All the same...it's hard to explain why, but there's just something about this play that is different. It's not a typical tragedy. But it's not really a celebration of revenge either. Electra's love of her brother Orestes is something appealing. It also has some of the best actual action of any of the plays, including a really good telling of a chariot race. It's funny how good that that mini-story is, because, that whole story is just fabricated to give the soon-to-be victims a misplaced sense of ease at thinking that Orestes has died (and so not guess the truth, which is that Orestes has actually come back to avenge his father on them this very day).
I will need to re-read this play a few times to understand why I liked it so much. I'm sorry I can't give better explanations as to why, yet.
4. Philoctetes
This guy was annoying because again, throwing a pity party, lame (which is why I don't enjoy the two Oedipus plays as much as I should). But there was more to this one. There is Philoctetes, whom Odysseus is trying to trick into coming back to help them with the Trojan war, or, failing that, to at least steal his magical bow (given to him by the gods). But there is a third character, Neoptolemus, who Odysseus uses to try and trick Philoctetes.
Neoptolemus is the more interesting character, he's younger but also jaded, he relates to Philoctetes a lot, and he changes his mind a couple of times and actually helps Philoctetes (by giving back his bow to him), even to their detriment, and respects Philoctetes' decision to still not help them. And he's willing to fight Odysseus and all the Greeks over this. He also tries to persuade Philoctetes, but he's not going to fight him to force his way. He seems much more motivated by empathy and much more capable of gaining perspective than any of the other Greek characters I've read about thus far. I really like him.
There's also a classic Ex Deus Machina at the end, a literal god-in-the-machine, as Heracles shows up in glory and convinces Philoctetes to go with them. Some people dislike this, but when I read it, I actually viewed it as the grace of God that sometimes forces us to change even though we know it's going to be painful and we don't want to do it, all the while knowing it's going to be good for us. Sometimes God does for us what we cannot do for ourselves. I think of stories like Jonah. I'm glad for Philoctetes that God pushed him out of his comfort zone, and glad for the times in my life and others when God has done that.
Conclusion: these plays are more readable, to me, than the more popular ones of Sophocles that I have read. Of all Sophocles' plays, my favorites are:
Antigone
Women of Trachis
Electra
Ajax
Philoctetes
So, 4/5 are in this volume. I will say, there are some parts of the Greek tragedy that make it not necessarily my favorite genre. But there is a lot of poetic and life depth to it. I want to continue to re-read these five plays in the years to come and continue to mine their depths.
1. Ajax
I read this as basically the story about how a great, renowned person can have a great life, but then end it poorly if he allows himself to be eaten up by entitlement and a desire for revenge. Ajax goes literally insane at the end of his life, ends up committing degrading acts, and when he realizes what he has done, he (you guessed it) kills himself (as is mandatory in all Greek tragedies). Others are angry at him and briefly consider disrespecting his body (by not burying it) but, this is wrong to do even to one's enemies, and so they do consent to bury it. There is a really good peaceful bittersweet ending to how Ajax dies.
But with that said, I'm not going to go into as much detail on this play, mostly because I just want to get to the other three.
2. Women of Trachis
This should really have been called Deianeira. It's the story of the jilted wife, who has gotten older and lost some of the beauty of her youth, her husband (Heracles) is always away, and then (in this case) he sends home a recently captured younger woman, Iole, to be his new concubine (basically). Unfortunately, when Deianeira first meets Iole, she takes pity on Iole and promises to take good care of her, before realizing exactly who Iole is to her husband. She is a woman of her word though.
This is an under-told story, if I can make up that word. I'm surprised at how many good proto-feminist stories that Sophocles told. It really focuses on the pain of Deianeira and I found myself really feeling for her. I felt for Iole, too, who had no choice in the matter.
But then on top of that pain, Deianeira makes a mistake. She uses a supposed magic potion on her husband (indirectly, by applying it to part of a robe that she sends to Heracles to wear). However, when Heracles wears it and the potion comes into contact with his chest, it eats away at it and slowly kills him; it's literally eating his heart out. He thinks she intentionally tried to kill him. She discovers what has happened and that she was tricked by the person who gave her this "magic potion," a centaur who was actually enacting a final act of vengeance when he gave it to her.
When she realizes what she has done (she has actually killed the very person that she was trying to draw close to her), she kills herself (as all Greek tragedies are mandated to end). This story just really strikes so close to home. This is a universal powerful truth. When we try to control others it usually backfires and we get the very opposite of what we wanted. It also burns especially to have insult added to injury because she was already in such a terrible position. To be so terribly treated by someone but to still love them and want them to love you--that's a hard thing that many people have experienced. I am filled with empathy for these stories.
These are the kind of stories that need to be told more. When I was a kid I was told the myths that appealed to boys/men, but there are myths that were written that appeal much more to the experience of girls/women. We need to bring this part of our cannon much more to the forefront, alongside the others.
3. Electra
This is one of the best stories that I have read of Sophocles so far. I say this despite the fact that Electra, the hero, is really quite un-empathetic in many ways. Her father, King Agamemnon, was murdered by her mother and her affair partner who then became her new husband afterwards. To add insult to injury, Electra has then had to live with her mother and step-father for years and years. She has never stopped grieving for her father, which has made them very angry with her, and she's almost never allowed to leave the house, etc.
She has been waiting all of these years for her brother to grow up in a distant city and then come back and avenge her father's death. The play is largely about that happening, and when he does get revenge on both perpetrators at the end, it's satisfying--although it's interesting, the revenge actually happens off camera: you hear it happening instead of seeing it, but somehow this only makes it more riveting. It actually feels like there are elements of horror in this play.
It has traces of Antigone. Again, you have a young woman who loves her brother greatly and who is grieving a family member who has been killed and disrespected, and continues to grieve them in the morally right way despite that having majorly negative consequences for herself. She's not as relatable as Antigone because she is still grieving after maybe 20 years or something, and one can see her being annoying about it. When her mother comes on scene and you hear about why she killed her husband, you actually start to relate to her mother a bit--although you still don't "root" for her, you are able to at least understand her perspective.
In fact, this play really doesn't have a "side" almost, even though there's the very obvious "side" of Electra and her brother Orestes getting revenge on Electra's mother and stepfather, at the same time, every single character is actually humanized, their perspective is shown in such a way that you can understand them a little. The stepfather is perhaps the least relatable. But you really get a taste of pretty much all of the characters. And when the revenge finally happens, it's not portrayed as some positive healing thing...I interpreted it as being portrayed as a horrific fact.
Electra shows a different side of herself when interacting with several different people. She's almost a series of reactions to other people. She doesn't change up through the end of the play; she never seems to come to the realization that revenge will not heal her.
All the same...it's hard to explain why, but there's just something about this play that is different. It's not a typical tragedy. But it's not really a celebration of revenge either. Electra's love of her brother Orestes is something appealing. It also has some of the best actual action of any of the plays, including a really good telling of a chariot race. It's funny how good that that mini-story is, because, that whole story is just fabricated to give the soon-to-be victims a misplaced sense of ease at thinking that Orestes has died (and so not guess the truth, which is that Orestes has actually come back to avenge his father on them this very day).
I will need to re-read this play a few times to understand why I liked it so much. I'm sorry I can't give better explanations as to why, yet.
4. Philoctetes
This guy was annoying because again, throwing a pity party, lame (which is why I don't enjoy the two Oedipus plays as much as I should). But there was more to this one. There is Philoctetes, whom Odysseus is trying to trick into coming back to help them with the Trojan war, or, failing that, to at least steal his magical bow (given to him by the gods). But there is a third character, Neoptolemus, who Odysseus uses to try and trick Philoctetes.
Neoptolemus is the more interesting character, he's younger but also jaded, he relates to Philoctetes a lot, and he changes his mind a couple of times and actually helps Philoctetes (by giving back his bow to him), even to their detriment, and respects Philoctetes' decision to still not help them. And he's willing to fight Odysseus and all the Greeks over this. He also tries to persuade Philoctetes, but he's not going to fight him to force his way. He seems much more motivated by empathy and much more capable of gaining perspective than any of the other Greek characters I've read about thus far. I really like him.
There's also a classic Ex Deus Machina at the end, a literal god-in-the-machine, as Heracles shows up in glory and convinces Philoctetes to go with them. Some people dislike this, but when I read it, I actually viewed it as the grace of God that sometimes forces us to change even though we know it's going to be painful and we don't want to do it, all the while knowing it's going to be good for us. Sometimes God does for us what we cannot do for ourselves. I think of stories like Jonah. I'm glad for Philoctetes that God pushed him out of his comfort zone, and glad for the times in my life and others when God has done that.
Conclusion: these plays are more readable, to me, than the more popular ones of Sophocles that I have read. Of all Sophocles' plays, my favorites are:
Antigone
Women of Trachis
Electra
Ajax
Philoctetes
So, 4/5 are in this volume. I will say, there are some parts of the Greek tragedy that make it not necessarily my favorite genre. But there is a lot of poetic and life depth to it. I want to continue to re-read these five plays in the years to come and continue to mine their depths.