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From Publishers Weekly
Starred Review. Writing with a pitch and heat that gets to the heart of the unforgiving classical world, Carson, a poet (The Autobiography of Red) and classicist (Economy of the Unlost), translates four of the 18 surviving plays by Euripides (485–406 B.C.): Alkestis, Herakles, Hekabe and Hippolytos. All feature characters trading single lines that somehow contain the essence of human tragedy. Alkestis blunderingly trades his wife's life for his own, then gets her back—but has to live with the embarrassment of having given her up. Herakles returns triumphant from the underworld, only to perform a fate-induced infanticide on his own children. Hekabe, a former queen now slave to the wily Odysseus, is reduced to a vengeful form of will to power. Hippolytos's uncomprehending state as the object of stepmother Phaidra's desire unravels all concerned. Carson is nothing less than brilliant—unfalteringly sharp in diction, audacious and judicious in taking liberties. In four separate prefaces, she introduces the plays succinctly, picking apart their structures and showing where flaws may be intentional. Worth the price of admission alone is Carson's blistering essay-afterword, written in Euripides's voice, which asks questions like "Is all anger sexual?" This amazing book gets very close to the playwright's enigmatic answers. (Aug.)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
Review
"The amazing poet Anne Carson offers a new translation of four plays by Euripides, each of which unfurls in searing, plainspoken English. Her essays and introductions are priceless." -Time Out NY
"In Grief Lessons, the contemporary poet and classicist Anne Carson's spare and beautiful new translation of four of Euripides' lesser known tragedies, we have a kind of primer on the intrinsic dangers of blind devotion to ideology." -The New Yorker
"An eclectic selection that provides an excellent introduction to Euripides's range. Ms. Carson's Euripides is bleak, moving, and provocative, offering a painful reminder of the resonance of these ancient plays with our own times." -The New York Sun
"Grief Lessons...reminds us that the difference between competent and inspired translation is more than a matter of even bravura technical competence. It involves a kind of discreet union between writer and translator, a certain convergence of aesthetic impulse and intellectual inclination. The issue of such a union can take a reader's breath away because it just seems so right--a work that stands firmly on its own but is somehow contented to be the sum of its parts. Carson's is, in other words, an altogether worthy heir...It's a reasonable and reasonably provocative contemporary reading." -The Los Angeles Times
"Writing with a pitch and heat that gets to the heart of the unforgiving classical world, Carson..is nothing less than brilliant--unfalteringly sharp in diction, audacious and judicious in taking liberties...Worth the price of admission alone is Carson's blistering essay afterword, written in Euripides's voice...This amazing book gets very close to the playwright's enigmatic answers." -Publishers Weekly*
"In Grief Lessons, the contemporary poet and classicist Anne Carson's spare and beautiful new translation of four of Euripides' lesser known tragedies, we have a kind of primer on the intrinsic dangers of blind devotion to ideology." -The New Yorker
"An eclectic selection that provides an excellent introduction to Euripides's range. Ms. Carson's Euripides is bleak, moving, and provocative, offering a painful reminder of the resonance of these ancient plays with our own times." -The New York Sun
"Grief Lessons...reminds us that the difference between competent and inspired translation is more than a matter of even bravura technical competence. It involves a kind of discreet union between writer and translator, a certain convergence of aesthetic impulse and intellectual inclination. The issue of such a union can take a reader's breath away because it just seems so right--a work that stands firmly on its own but is somehow contented to be the sum of its parts. Carson's is, in other words, an altogether worthy heir...It's a reasonable and reasonably provocative contemporary reading." -The Los Angeles Times
"Writing with a pitch and heat that gets to the heart of the unforgiving classical world, Carson..is nothing less than brilliant--unfalteringly sharp in diction, audacious and judicious in taking liberties...Worth the price of admission alone is Carson's blistering essay afterword, written in Euripides's voice...This amazing book gets very close to the playwright's enigmatic answers." -Publishers Weekly*
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5.0 out of 5 stars (5 customer reviews)
28 of 28 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars
simple, clear, beautiful, Sep 7 2006
By Travis Ann Sherman - Published on Amazon.com
Amazon Verified Purchase(What's this?)
This review is from: Grief Lessons: Four Plays by Euripides (Hardcover)
I've owned copies of Euripides all my life and never got around to reading them, but when Grief Lessons came across my desk last week, I was compelled to read straight through it. The title alone speaks of Carson's special talent for reaching the heart of the matter. Grief Lessons. The layout of her character's dialogue, too, flows back and forth along the margins of the page so that your eye moves easily down the text. The characters speak simply, without flourishes, without annoying Victorian poetic touches. Grief Lessons opens up Euripides to you so clearly that you can hear the characters weeping and shouting at each other on the stage of your mind. At the same time, so simple is Carson's translation that her words have an open ended flexibility that let you imagine them being pitched almost any way. Is Admetus a typical egocentric or an oaf? I'd always felt sorry for Hippolytus, cursed unfairly by his father. Now I'd like to curse him myself. I've never seen pomposity in a youth so clearly shown in a play. Moreover, Euripides lived at the end of Greece's golden age. His cynicism of the gods and heroes plays very appropriately on the stage of today.
3 of 3 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars
Eros and Necessity, Mar 22 2009
By Nancy E. Ryan ""lover of Books"" - Published on Amazon.com
This review is from: Grief Lessons: Four Plays by Euripides (Paperback)
No one writes about eros and "Necessity" (or the Greeks, Common Sense) their twists of irony, and the destructiveness of revenge as does Anne Carson. These plays are as relevant today as they were when written. The translations are fluent, singing poetry. The short prefaces are dynamite. Reflective and provocative. I'm rereading her other books. They are each one inspiring and unique. She is one of our best poets, and philosophers. Whenever my mind is dull, I reach over and pick up Desecration or Irony and Glass.
4 of 5 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars
Family love and hate, Jan 11 2007
By Marilyn French - Published on Amazon.com
This review is from: Grief Lessons: Four Plays by Euripides (Hardcover)
This translation of four plays by Euripedes is brilliant, clean and clear, without pretension. It offers the direct gaze of an Athenian at human emotion and human fate, which is considered a matter of luck more than character. For the Athenians matters of state and import are rooted in the family, where everything begins.
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