Tyrtaeus: A Tragedy

by Lajos Walder

Overview

Written in the early 1940s under the Nazi reign of terror and set in ancient Sparta during the Second Messenean War in the 7th century BCE, "Tyrtaeus" dramatizes contemporary ethical and political concerns—the brutality of totalitarianism, the precariousness of democracy and human rights, and the sociopolitical role of poetry and art more generally—through the prism of Greek elegiac poet Tyrtaeus’ involvement in the conflict: first as a prisoner of war and, subsequently, as a newly-minted Spartan general who—as decreed by the Delphic Oracle—is ironically destined to lead Sparta to victory. A perennial play that speaks to all ages.

Product Details

BN ID:	2940153887333
Publisher:	Upper West Side Philosophers, Inc.
Publication date:	02/10/2017
Sold by:	Smashwords
Format:	eBook
File size:	386 KB

About the Author

Arguably the most significant modern Hungarian poet, Lajos Walder was born in 1913 and died in 1945 in the Gunskirchen concentration camp, on the day it was liberated by the Allied forces. Exuberant and witty, poignant and severe, trenchant yet light-hearted, Lajos Walder's poems cut to the quick and stay with you. Reading them is like reliving an era long gone and, at the same time, learning to see our own world with new eyes. For Lajos Walder's message speaks to us as directly today as it did to his contemporaries almost a century ago: '... that apart from thieves and murderers // there are also human beings'. For the first time, Lajos Walder's complete extant poetry is made available in English, superbly translated by the poet's daughter Agnes Walder, who also provides a beautiful afterword, and with a passionate foreword by Scots fellow poet Don Paterson.