Based on the conviction that only translators who write poetry themselves can properly re-create the celebrated and timeless tragedies of Aeschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides, the Greek Tragedy in New Translations series offers new translations that go beyond the literal meaning of the Greek in order to evoke the poetry of the originals.
This volume collects Euripides' Electra (translated by Janet Lembke and Kenneth J. Reckford), an exciting story of vengeance that counterposes suspense and horror with comic realism; Orestes (John Peck and Frank Nisetich), the tragedy of a young man who kills his mother to avenge her murder of his father; Iphigenia in Tauris (Richmond Lattimore), a delicately written and beautifully contrived Euripidean "romance"; and Iphigeneia at Aulis (W. S. Merwin and George E. Dimock, Jr.), a compelling look at the devastating consequence of "man's inhumanity to man." This volume reprints the informative introductions and notes of the original editions, and adds a single combined glossary and Greek line numbers.
the poets in these volumes communicate a freshness and vitality ... The vivid and responsive re-creations are a clear first-choice recommendation for the general reader
