Найти книгу: "Iphigenia, Phaedra, Athaliah"

The 17th century dramatist Jean Racine was considered, along with Moliere and Corneille, as one of the three great playwrights of his era. The quality of Racine's poetry has been described as possibly his most important contribution to French literature and his use of the alexandrine poetic line is one of the best examples of such use noted for its harmony, simplicity and elegance. While critics over the centuries have debated the worth of Jean Racine, at present, he is widely considered a literary genius of revolutionary proportions. In this volume of Racine's plays we find «Iphigenia, Phaedra, Athaliah», three of the most popular of the author's dramas. In «Iphigenia» we find the titular daughter of Agamemnon, King of the Greeks, who must sacrifice his daughter in order to set sail for war. In «Phaedra», we have the classic story from Greek mythology concerning its titular character who though married to Theseus falls in love with Hippolytus. And finally in «Athaliah» we find the biblical story of Athaliah, widow of the king of Judah, who rules the country as Queen regnant.

Примечание: «Ифигения в Тавриде». Полный вариант заголовка: «Iphigenia in Tauris : a tragedy, written originally in German / by J. W. von Goethe».

First performed in Paris in 1677, Jean Racine’s “Phaedra” is the tenth of twelve plays by the author and his last to be based on Greek mythology. Racine, the famed French dramatist and master of dodecasyllabic alexandrine, the 12-syllable poetic meter, was a contemporary of Moliere and Corneille. This classic story concerns its titular character, who though married to Theseus, the King of Athens, falls in love with Hippolytus, Theseus’ son from his first marriage. Hippolytus also has a forbidden desire in his heart for Aricia, who is held by Theseus under a vow of chastity and is the lone survivor of the royal house vanquished by Theseus. Phaedra unleashes a tragic series of events when she is mistakenly told that Theseus has died and she reveals her taboo love for her stepson. Her husband returns and both Phaedra and Hippolytus pay the ultimate price for their forbidden desires. “Phaedra” was incredibly well received with praise from the likes of Voltaire who described the work as a “masterpiece of the human mind”. The drama remains to this day widely performed, studied, and translated, and endures as one of Racine’s most highly regarded works. This edition follows the translation of Robert Bruce Boswell.

Euripides turned to playwriting at a young age, achieving his first victory in the dramatic competitions of the Athenian City Dionysia in 441 b.c.e. He would be awarded this honor three more times in his life, and once more posthumously. Together with Aeschylus and Sophocles, Euripides would provide the canon of Greek tragedy and thereby lay the foundation of Western theatre. Eighteen of Euripides' ninety-two works remain today, making his the largest extant collection of work by an ancient playwright. «Iphigenia at Aulis» is part of a trilogy which is the last remaining work of Euripides. It was produced a year after his death by his son or nephew, and received first place at the Athenian City Dionysia. The story takes place before and during the Trojan War, when Agamemnon must decide whether or not to sacrifice his daughter, Iphigenia, for the sake of Troy's honor. It explores timeless themes of honor, sacrifice, hypocrisy and courage.

"The Iphigenia in Tauris is not in the modern sense a tragedy; it is a romantic play, beginning in a tragic atmosphere and moving through perils and escapes to a happy end. To the archaeologist the cause of this lies in the ritual on which the play is based. All Greek tragedies that we know have as their nucleus something which the Greeks called an Aition-a cause or origin. They all explain some ritual or observance or commemorate some great event." So begins the preface to «Iphigenia in Tauris» by Euripides as translated and prefaced by Gilbert Murray.