Let’s read the ancient Greek plays next year. All of them. There are not so many, and they are generally short.
I’ll read them all, one per week, and put up some kind of
post on Friday, where anyone can join in.
Of course anyone can do whatever they want, on their own blog or on
Twitter or in quiet communion with nature.
Below, we can see my schedule, but everyone is welcome to dip in
as they like.
I have no Greek and no expertise, except that I read through
the plays over twenty years ago, and have read several on occasion since. They are, overall, fundamental texts in my
understanding of literature, not just theater.
They are also full of great characters, exciting stories, extraordinary
language (even in translation), and conceptual innovations of the greatest
importance.
We are lucky to have seven surviving plays by Aeschylus,
seven by Sophocles, nineteen by Euripides (one of which is perhaps by someone
else), eleven by Aristophanes, and one by Menander, with one more close enough
to complete that I am including it.
Forty-six plays in forty-six weeks.
I have made an educational and perhaps foolish attempt to
put the plays in chronological order, relying mostly on the Penguin and University
of Chicago editions. My chronology is
likely full of errors – please correct – and anyways should be often taken as
guesswork. But once we get into the 420s
the mix gets pretty interesting. 405 is
a landmark in literature. All years are
BCE.
|
A |
Aeschylus
(524-456) |
|
S |
Sophocles
(496-405) |
|
E |
Euripides
(480-406) |
|
Ar |
Aristophanes
(446-386) |
|
M |
Menander
(341-290) |
|
472 |
A |
The
Persians |
|
|
470 |
|
|
first
Sophocles play |
|
467 |
A |
Seven
Against Thebes |
|
|
463 |
A |
The
Suppliants |
|
|
??? |
A |
Prometheus
Bound |
|
|
Early? |
S |
Ajax |
|
|
458 |
A |
Agamemnon |
|
|
|
A |
The
Libation Bearers |
|
|
|
A |
Eumenides |
|
|
441 |
S |
Antigone |
|
|
Before
440? |
"E" |
Rhesus |
|
|
438 |
E |
Alcestis |
Death
of Pindar |
|
431 |
E |
The
Medea |
|
|
430 |
|
|
Death
of Herodotus |
|
c.
429 |
E |
The
Heracleidae |
|
|
428 |
E |
Hippolytus |
|
|
c.
426 |
S |
Oedipus
Rex |
|
|
c.
425 |
E |
Andromache |
|
|
425 |
Ar |
The
Acharnians |
|
|
c.
424 |
E |
Hecuba |
|
|
424 |
Ar |
The
Knights |
|
|
c.
423 |
E |
The
Suppliants |
|
|
423 |
Ar |
The
Clouds |
|
|
c.
420s |
S |
The
Women of Trachis |
|
|
422 |
Ar |
The
Wasps |
|
|
421 |
Ar |
Peace |
|
|
Late
- 420-414 |
S |
Elektra |
|
|
c.
416 |
E |
Herakles |
|
|
c.
415 |
E |
The
Trojan Women |
|
|
c.
414 |
E |
Iphigenia
in Tauris |
|
|
414 |
Ar |
The
Birds |
|
|
c.
413 |
E |
Ion |
|
|
c.
413 |
E |
Electra |
|
|
412 |
E |
Helen |
|
|
411 |
Ar |
Lysistrata |
|
|
411 |
Ar |
The
Poet and the Women |
|
|
c.
410 |
E |
The
Phoenician Women |
|
|
Late
? |
E |
The
Cyclops |
|
|
409 |
S |
Philoctetes |
|
|
408 |
E |
Orestes |
|
|
405 |
E |
The Bacchae |
Death of Sophocles |
|
|
E |
Iphigenia in Aulis |
|
|
|
Ar |
The Frogs |
|
| 404 |
S |
Oedipus at Colonus |
|
|
400 |
|
|
Death
of Thucydides |
|
399 |
|
|
Death
of Socrates |
|
392 |
Ar |
The
Assemblywomen |
|
|
388 |
Ar |
Wealth |
|
|
347 |
|
|
Death
of Plato |
|
323 |
|
|
Death
of Alexander |
|
322 |
|
|
Death
of Aristotle |
|
316 |
M |
Dyskolos |
|
|
c.
315 |
M |
The
Girl from Samos |
|
Just putting the list together got me excited to read the
plays along with whoever is interested.
Perhaps half of them are among the greatest works in literature. But we can chat about that later.
As for translations, I have no advice. The University of Chicago series has been a
standard for a long time. The Oxford
series with the black covers always seemed excellent, and have more notes. Every Penguin Classics I have tired has been
good. Any of these will have adequate
notes for most people. I am curious
about some of the “celebrity” versions – Seamus Heaney’s Antigone, or Wole
Soyinka’s Antigone, for example.
H.D.’s Ion is a good one.
But all of that can wait, too.
I plan to start in January, with the first post on The
Persians up on January 14.
The title of the post uses the last line of The Eumenides as per Robert Fagles.
