Description
Book SynopsisAeschylus (ca. 525–456 BC) is the dramatist who made Athenian tragedy one of the world’s great art forms. Seven of his eighty or so plays survive complete, including the Oresteia trilogy and the
Persians, the only extant Greek historical drama. Fragments of his lost plays also survive.
Trade ReviewAlan Sommerstein’s three-volume Aeschylus…is in many respects the best critical edition of this playwright available in any format. Sommerstein’s authority as a linguist and expert in Aeschylean drama is second to none… Particularly welcome is the well-documented and clearly presented volume of
Fragments—for of course the seven plays we happen to possess are by no means all that Aeschylus wrote, and not necessarily even the seven best: the trilogies dealing with Achilles at Troy, or with Pentheus and the Bacchants, for example, seem to have been especially daring and influential. The facing English translation is a trustworthy guide for all who want help in figuring out what Aeschylus (probably) wrote and meant. -- Mark Griffith * Times Literary Supplement *
