The Persians

by Aeschylus

Overview

The Persians Aeschylus The Persians, Aeschylus' earliest surviving tragedy, holds a fascination both for readers of Greek drama and Greek history. Not only is it the earliest existing play in the Western tradition, it is drawn directly from the playwright's own experiences at the battle of Salamis, making it the only account of the Persian Wars composed by an eyewitness. And as pure tragedy, it is a masterpiece. Aeschylus tells the story of the war from the Persian point of view, and his pride in the great victory of Greeks is tempered with a real compassion for Xerxes and his vanquished nation. Lembke and Harrington have rendered this stunning work in a modern translation that loses none of the original's dramatic juxtaposition of serenity and violence, hope and despair. We are delighted to publish this classic book as part of our extensive Classic Library collection. Many of the books in our collection have been out of print for decades, and therefore have not been accessible to the general public. The aim of our publishing program is to facilitate rapid access to this vast reservoir of literature, and our view is that this is a significant literary work, which deserves to be brought back into print after many decades. The contents of the vast majority of titles in the Classic Library have been scanned from the original works. To ensure a high quality product, each title has been meticulously hand curated by our staff. Our philosophy has been guided by a desire to provide the reader with a book that is as close as possible to ownership of the original work. We hope that you will enjoy this wonderful classic work, and that for you it becomes an enriching experience.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781721591923
Publisher:	CreateSpace Publishing
Publication date:	07/04/2018
Pages:	100
Product dimensions:	5.98(w) x 9.02(h) x 0.21(d)

About the Author

Janet Lembke, a poet, is the author of Bronze and Iron, and is co-translator of the forthcoming edition of Euripides's Suppliants, also in the Greek Tragedy in New Translations series.
C. John Herington is Professor of Classics and Talcott Professor of Greek at Yale University. He is the author of several books, including Poetry into Drama and Aeschylus.

Editorial Reviews

"The musicality of Deborah Roberts' translation of Aeschylus' Persians, the earliest Greek tragedy that has come down to us, rivals the playwright's own astonishing lyricism. She crafts extended speeches by the drama's characters into captivating set-pieces of performance poetry. Roberts also replicates Herodotus' celebrated storytelling energy in her translation of the passages from his Histories included in this volume. In her Introduction, Roberts examines Aeschylus' drama and Herodotus' representations of Persian culture as crucial records of ancient Greek conceptions of otherness and perceptively appraises the Persians itself as a sober contemplation upon the shared human toll of political ambition and warfare’s traumas and grief, making this book urgently relevant to contemporary audiences."
—James Bradley Wells, PhD, Edwin L. Minar Professor of Classical Studies, DePauw University

From the Publisher