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    Electra: Full Text and Introduction
    Unavailable
    Electra: Full Text and Introduction
    Unavailable
    Electra: Full Text and Introduction
    Ebook112 pages1 hour

    Electra: Full Text and Introduction

    By Sophocles

    3.5/5

    ()

    Currently unavailable

    Currently unavailable

    About this ebook

    Drama Classics: The World's Great Plays at a Great Little Price

    A tragic tale of duty, retribution and fate.

    King Agamemnon, on returning from the Trojan Wars, is murdered by his wife, Clytemnestra, and her lover. Now, to avenge the crime, their daughter Electra must commit one even worse and face the inevitable consequences.

    This edition of Sophocles' play Electra, in the Nick Hern Books Drama Classics series, is translated and introduced by Marianne McDonald and J. Michael Walton.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherNick Hern Books
    Release dateOct 31, 2019
    ISBN9781788502382
    Unavailable
    Electra: Full Text and Introduction
    Author

    Sophocles

    Sophocles is one of three ancient Greek tragedians whose plays have survived. His first plays were written later than or contemporary with those of Aeschylus, and earlier than or contemporary with those of Euripides.

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    Reviews for Electra

    3.5/5

    140 ratings3 reviews

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    • 2/5
      I didn't enjoy Electra. It's partly that I truly don't like the character Electra herself, but that wouldn't matter so much if it weren't for the way that the play itself was constructed.Why in the world did Orestes hide who he was in the first place? It has no point, not advancing the plot one whit for him to conceal his identity until the old tutor guessed it from a scar. And then after it was guessed, it was all tra-la, tra-la, of course you're Orestes, celebrations abound, let's continue. Why didn't he just come up to Electra and (once they were in the privacy of her house) tell her that he was his brother? It's a fake plot device made solely for the fabrication of 'tension,' and I don't like it.There was one part that I did really enjoy, though: the chorus singing of the golden fleece. I have no idea what it had to do with the story, except that shearing hair seems to be a theme in this story. There's Orestes with his shorn lock on the tomb of Agamemnon, and Electra with her hair cropped off (although she claims it's snarled as well, which I would not have caught had it not been for the footnote). There's the short story of the golden fleece, incomplete and pretty much irrelevant as far as I can surmise, but lovely nonetheless. There are one or two other instances of hair being mentioned, enough for me to believe that it had a theme of some kind. Of what theme that might be, however, I have no idea.Orestes' speech of praise for the peasant seems contrived simply for the use of lecturing the Greek citizens on how to value a man. Besides which, if the peasant were that worth and important, he would have had a name. Maybe. I mean, Euripides was one of those really original playwrights, who usually called a king "King" and a queen "Queen" and such. All in all, no go. A few really lovely parts, but nothing worth bringing home to mother. Who is, incidentally, the murderer of your father. And who holds more awesome in one fingernail than Electra holds in her whole body. No, Orestes' and Electra's bodies combined. May they be smited by the furies and never whine again.
    • 3/5
      While I loved the dialogue, the pacing of this Hamlet and Antigone caper was a bit rushed. The chorus was particularly effective, the atmosphere resonates with revenge. Electra pines but does not waste. Her timid sister cringes in comparison to this inferno of vengeance. Then suddenly she has a cohort and the circumstances of his arrival afford their nemesis interlopers opportunity to even further impugn their deeds—or do they?

      Aegisthus, what were you thinking? There is a nobility in the Divine. There’s also Icarian agency. Think Cobain, “Come back as Fire/Burn all the liars/Leave a blanket of ash on the ground. The plot was the only one pursued by three of the Greek masters (Euripides and Aeschylus being the other two) which invites comparisons, though apparently the chronology is regrettably unclear.
    • 3/5
      Zeer duidelijke dramatische structuur, psychologisch voldragen, zeer dynamisch verhaal; in tegenstelling tot Aischylos hier voldragen, zelfstandige persoonlijkheden