Oedipus at Colonus is the third in Sophocles' trilogy of plays about the famous king of Thebes and his unhappy family. It dramatizes the mysterious death of Oedipus, by which he is transformed into an immortal hero protecting Athens. This was Sophocles' final play, written in his mid-eighties and produced posthumously. Translator David Mulroy's introduction and notes deepen the reader's understanding of Oedipus' character and the real political tumult that was shaking Athens at the time that Sophocles wrote the play. Oedipus at Colonus is at once a complex study of a tragic...
Oedipus at Colonus is the third in Sophocles' trilogy of plays about the famous king of Thebes and his unhappy family. It dramatizes the myster...
The Odes of Horace are a treasure of Western civilization, and this new English translation is a lively rendition by one of the prominent poet-translators of our own time, David R. Slavitt. Horace was one of the great poets of Rome s Augustan age, benefiting (as did fellow poet Vergil) from the friendship of the powerful statesman and cultural patron Maecenas. These Odes, which take as their formal models Greek poems of the seventh century BCEespecially the work of Sappho and Alcaeusare the observations of a wry, subtle mind on events and occasions of everyday life. At first...
The Odes of Horace are a treasure of Western civilization, and this new English translation is a lively rendition by one of the prominent poet-...
Agamemnon, King of Argos, returns to Greece a victor in the Trojan War. He has brought with him the seer Cassandra as his war-prize and concubine. Awaiting him is his vengeful wife Clytemnestra, who is angry at Agamemnon's sacrifice of their daughter Iphigeneia to the gods, jealous of Cassandra, and guilty of taking a lover herself. The events that unfold catch everyone in a bloody net, including their absent son Orestes. Aeschylus (525/4-456/5 B.C.E.) was the first of the three great tragic dramatists of ancient Greece, a forerunner of Sophocles and Euripides. His early tragedies were...
Agamemnon, King of Argos, returns to Greece a victor in the Trojan War. He has brought with him the seer Cassandra as his war-prize and concubine. Awa...
These three ancient tragedies--Trojan Women, Helen, and Hecuba--dramatize the tragic fates of women in the wake of war. Euripides (480-406 BC) innovatively brought to Greek tragedy the inner lives of his characters. In these plays he delivers powerful portrayals of the suffering of both Greek and Trojan women as they become pawns and prizes of warring men. Francis Blessington combines his work as a poet, translator, and teacher of literature and Greek with his theatrical experience to create fresh and faithful verse translations suitable for the stage, the classroom,...
These three ancient tragedies--Trojan Women, Helen, and Hecuba--dramatize the tragic fates of women in the wake of war. Euripides...
Ovid's Art of Love (Ars Amatoria) and its sequel Remedies for Love (Remedia Amoris) are among the most notorious poems of the ancient world. In AD 8, the emperor Augustus exiled Ovid to the shores of the Black Sea for "a poem and a mistake." Whatever the mistake may have been, the poem was certainly the Ars Amatoria, which the emperor found a bit too immoral. In exile, Ovid composed Sad Things (Tristia), which included a defense of his life and work as brilliant and cheeky as his controversial love manuals. In a poem addressed to Augustus...
Ovid's Art of Love (Ars Amatoria) and its sequel Remedies for Love (Remedia Amoris) are among the most notorious poems of ...
Homer's "Iliad" is often considered a poem of blunt truthfulness, his characters' motivation pleasingly simple. A closer look, however, reveals a complex interplay of characters who engage in an awful lot of lies. Beginning with Achilles, who hatches a secret plot to destroy his own people, Mark Buchan traces motifs of deception and betrayal throughout the poem. Homer's heroes offer bluster, their passion linked to and explained by their lack of authenticity. Buchan reads Homer's characters between the lies, showing how the plot is structured individual denial and what cannot be said.
Homer's "Iliad" is often considered a poem of blunt truthfulness, his characters' motivation pleasingly simple. A closer look, however, reveals a c...
This lively translation accurately captures the wit and uncensored bawdiness of the epigrams of Martial, who satirized Roman society, both high and low, in the first century CE. His pithy little poems amuse, but also offer vivid insight into the world of patrons and clients, doctors and lawyers, prostitutes, slaves, and social climbers in ancient Rome. The selections cover nearly a third of Martial's 1,500 or so epigrams, augmented by an introduction by historian Marc Kleijwegt and informative notes on literary allusion and wordplay by translator Susan McLean. Finalist, Literary...
This lively translation accurately captures the wit and uncensored bawdiness of the epigrams of Martial, who satirized Roman society, both high and lo...
Amanda Wilcox offers an innovative approach to two major collections of Roman letters--Cicero's "Ad Familiares" and Seneca's "Moral Epistles"--informed by modern cross-cultural theories of gift-giving. By viewing letters and the practice of correspondence as a species of gift exchange, Wilcox provides a nuanced analysis of neglected and misunderstood aspects of Roman epistolary rhetoric and the social dynamics of friendship in Cicero's correspondence. Turning to Seneca, she shows that he both inherited and reacted against Cicero's euphemistic rhetoric and social practices, and she...
Amanda Wilcox offers an innovative approach to two major collections of Roman letters--Cicero's "Ad Familiares" and Seneca's "Moral Epistles"--info...
Pat Getz-Gentle provides a clear and detailed survey of the Cycladic period, an early Bronze Age culture that thrived at the heart of the Aegean. In particular, she emphasises the steps leading to the iconic, reclining folded-arm figure that uniquely defines the Cycladic era. Getz-Gentle also focuses on the personal aesthetics of fifteen carvers, several of whom are identified and discussed in this volume. New to this paperback edition is an expanded bibliography as well an addendum that contains additional works Getz-Gentle has attributed to some of the fifteen Cycladic sculptors she...
Pat Getz-Gentle provides a clear and detailed survey of the Cycladic period, an early Bronze Age culture that thrived at the heart of the Aegean. In p...
