Empfehlungen basierend auf "Lysistrata and Other Plays (Penguin Classics)"

This is an invaluable introduction to ancient Greek tragedy which discusses every surviving play in detail and provides all the background information necessary for understanding the context and content of the plays. Edith Hall argues that the essential feature of the genre is that it always depicts terrible human suffering and death, but in a way that invites philosophical enquiry into their causes and effects, This enquiry was played out in the bright sunlight of open-air theatre, which became a key marker of the boundary between living and dead. The first half of the book is divided into four chapters which address the social and physical contexts in which the plays were performed, the contribution of the poets, actors, funders, and audiences, the poetic composition of the texts, their performance conventions, main themes, and focus on religion, politics, and the family. The second half consists of individual essays on each of the surviving thirty-three plays by the Greek tragedians, and an account of the recent performance of Greek tragic theatre and tragic fragments. An up-to-date 'Suggestions for further reading' is included.

From the arrival of the first men in Greece to the fall of the Mycenaean palace-town in the thirteenth century B.C., this work captures the essential qualities of each period of pre-classical civilization: the slow development of the Neolithic culture, the rich and original Early Bronze Age, the fruitful yet tragic encounter between Minoans and Mycenaean Empire. The legacy of Mycenaean religion and art is reviewed, including material found in excavated palaces and their stored wealth of frescoes, carved ivories, silver and gold jewelry, vases, and bronze weapons. The author deals with the invasions of Greece, the growth of a Greek language and some of the problems of Linear B, and the impact of Crete and the East upon the mainstream of Greek development.

More or less 150 years after Homer's Iliad, Sappho lived on the island of Lesbos, west off the coast of what is present Turkey. Little remains today of her writings, which are said to have filled nine papyrus rolls in the great library at Alexandria some 500 years after her death. The surviving texts consist of a lamentably small and fragmented body of lyric poetry—among them poems of invocation, desire, spite, celebration, resignation and remembrance—that nevertheless enables us to hear the living voice of the poet Plato called the tenth Muse. This is a new translation of her surviving poetry.For more than seventy years, Penguin has been the leading publisher of classic literature in the English-speaking world. With more than 1,700 titles, Penguin Classics represents a global bookshelf of the best works throughout history and across genres and disciplines. Readers trust the series to provide authoritative texts enhanced by introductions and notes by distinguished scholars and contemporary authors, as well as up-to-date translations by award-winning translators.

The trial and death of Socrates (469-399 BCE) have almost as central a place in Western consciousness as the trial and death of Jesus. In four superb dialogues, Plato provides the classic account. Euthyphro finds Socrates outside the court-house, debating the nature of piety, while the Apology is his robust rebuttal of the charges of impiety and a defence of the philosopher's life. In the Crito, while awaiting execution in prison, Socrates counters the arguments of friends urging him to escape. Finally, in the Phaedo, he is shown calmly confident in the face of death, skilfully arguing the case for the immortality of the soul. For more than seventy years, Penguin has been the leading publisher of classic literature in the English-speaking world. With more than 1,700 titles, Penguin Classics represents a global bookshelf of the best works throughout history and across genres and disciplines. Readers trust the series to provide authoritative texts enhanced by introductions and notes by distinguished scholars and contemporary authors, as well as up-to-date translations by award-winning translators.

Fragments of wisdom from the ancient worldIn the sixth century b.c.-twenty-five hundred years before Einstein--Heraclitus of Ephesus declared that energy is the essence of matter, that everything becomes energy in flux, in relativity. His great book, On Nature, the world's first coherent philosophical treatise and touchstone for Plato, Aristotle, and Marcus Aurelius, has long been lost to history--but its surviving fragments have for thousands of years tantalized our greatest thinkers, from Montaigne to Nietzsche, Heidegger to Jung. Now, acclaimed poet Brooks Haxton presents a powerful free-verse translation of all 130 surviving fragments of the teachings of Heraclitus, with the ancient Greek originals beautifully reproduced en face.For more than seventy years, Penguin has been the leading publisher of classic literature in the English-speaking world. With more than 1,700 titles, Penguin Classics represents a global bookshelf of the best works throughout history and across genres and disciplines. Readers trust the series to provide authoritative texts enhanced by introductions and notes by distinguished scholars and contemporary authors, as well as up-to-date translations by award-winning translators.

Through National Book Award-winning translator Allen Mandelbaum's poetic artistry, this gloriously entertaining achievement of literature — classical myths filtered through the worldly and far from reverent sensibility of the Roman poet Ovid — is revealed anew.Savage and sophisticated, mischievious and majestic, witty and wicked, The Metamorphoses weaves together every major mythological story to display a dazzling array of miraculous changes, from the time chaos is transformed into order at the moment of creation, to the time when the soul of Julius Caeser is turned into a star and set in the heavens. In its earthiness, its psychological acuity, this classic work continues to speak over the centuries to our time. "Reading Mandelbaum's extraordinary translation, one imagines Ovid in his darkest moods with the heart of Baudelaire...Brilliant."—Booklist

In the Oresteia Aeschylus addressed the bloody chain of murder and revenge within the royal family of Argos. As they move from darkness to light, from rage to self-governance, from primitive ritual to civilized institution, their spirit of struggle and regeneration becomes an everlasting song of celebration. In Agamemnon, a king's decision to sacrifice his daughter and turn the tide of war inflicts lasting damage on his family, culminating in a terrible act of retribution; The Libation Bearers deals with the aftermath of Clytemnestra's regicide, as her son Orestes sets out to avenge his father's death; and in The Eumenides, Orestes is tormented by supernatural powers that can never be appeased. Forming an elegant and subtle discourse on the emergence of Athenian democracy out of a period of chaos and destruction, The Oresteia is a compelling tragedy of the tensions between our obligations to our families and the laws that bind us together as a society. The only trilogy in Greek drama that survives from antiquity, Aeschylus' The Oresteia is translated by Robert Fagles with an introduction, notes and glossary written in collaboration with W.B. Stanford in Penguin Classics. For more than seventy years, Penguin has been the leading publisher of classic literature in the English-speaking world. With more than 1,700 titles, Penguin Classics represents a global bookshelf of the best works throughout history and across genres and disciplines. Readers trust the series to provide authoritative texts enhanced by introductions and notes by distinguished scholars and contemporary authors, as well as up-to-date translations by award-winning translators.

Four seminal tragedies by the master Greek dramatist, in sparkling new translationsOf the more than one hundred plays Sophocles wrote over the course of his long life, only seven survive. This volume collects four of them, all newly translated. Electra portrays the grief of a young woman for her father, Agamemnon, who has been killed by her mother's lover. Ajax depicts the enigma of power and weakness vis-àvis the fall of the great hero. Women of Trachis dramatizes the tragic love and error of Heracles's deserted wife, Deianeira; Philoctetes examines the conflict between physical force and moral strength.For more than seventy years, Penguin has been the leading publisher of classic literature in the English-speaking world. With more than 1,700 titles, Penguin Classics represents a global bookshelf of the best works throughout history and across genres and disciplines. Readers trust the series to provide authoritative texts enhanced by introductions and notes by distinguished scholars and contemporary authors, as well as up-to-date translations by award-winning translators.

Included in this volume are the dialogues On the Shortness of Life and On Tranquility of Mind, which are eloquent classic statements of Stoic ideals of fortitude and self-reliance. This selection also features extracts from Natural Questions, Seneca's exploration of such phenomena as the cataracts of the Nile and earthquakes, and the Consolation of Helvia, in which he tenderly tries to soothe his mother's pain at their separation.For more than seventy years, Penguin has been the leading publisher of classic literature in the English-speaking world. With more than 1,700 titles, Penguin Classics represents a global bookshelf of the best works throughout history and across genres and disciplines. Readers trust the series to provide authoritative texts enhanced by introductions and notes by distinguished scholars and contemporary authors, as well as up-to-date translations by award-winning translators.

The siege of Troy is in its 10th year, in the third book continuing from King of Ithaca and The Gates of Troy The Greeks, with Achilles at their head, have inflicted numerous defeats on the Trojans, but Troy itself still stands. Dispirited, bitter, and frustrated by the war, Odysseus and his men think lovingly of home. But while Agammenon is still determined to avenge himself upon Troy for the theft of Helen by Paris, they are all trapped by the oath that Odysseus created. Eperitus, captain of Odysseus' guards, is tormented by his own oath--to protect the very man who murdered his daughter. When Agamemnon is threatened with mutiny by a disillusioned army he changes his tactics, ordering a series of attacks on the allies of Troy, thus depriving the city of reinforcements, trade, and supplies--but even this cannot draw the Trojans out from behind their walls. When Agamemnon angers the formidable Achilles, the battle for Troy seems doomed to failure. For it's only through the strength of their golden warrior that the pride of the Trojans will finally fall.