Book Size: 6" x 9"
Pages: 224
Format: Paperback
ISBN: 9781566566353
Imprint: Olive Branch Press
Edition: 1
Release date: 2006
Category: LiteratureHerakles Gone Mad
Rethinking Heroism in an Age of Endless War
$ 15“An eloquent and memorable study of Herakles Gone Mad and a wonderfully performable, vivid new translation of the play.” — Jonathan Shay, author of Odysseus in America: Combat Trauma and the Trials of Homecoming
About this book
A decorated hero returns home after multiple tours of duty only to find the lives of his loved ones threatened.
To make his home safe, he does battle one last time- one time too many. He slays his enemies but then, unable in his rage to tell friend from foe, murders his wife and children. He blacks out, and, when his wits return, his only thoughts are of death. Then a friend whose life he once saved in battle arrives, offering his hand and his heart. The long road home begins.
Story of post-traumatic stress disorder of soldiers returning from Iraq? No- Euripides. No playwright, ancient or contemporary, has written with greater power and poignancy about war and its enduring wounds than has this Greek who lived 24 centuries ago and was himself a veteran. Euripides' misunderstood masterpiece, Herakles Gone Mad, a play for dark times, reveals both the wreckage of war and the luminous power of love.
In this volume, the distinguished author, translator, educator, and playwright Robert Emmet Meagher presents a new eminently actable translation of Euripides' Herakles along with a concise commentary on the play and an extensive essay on the trauma of war, the true face of heroism, and the healing power of friendship and community.
About the author
Robert Emmet Meagher is professor of humanities at Hampshire College in Amherst, Massachusetts, and the author or translator of nearly two dozen books. Meagher is best known for his theatrical translations of Euripides, most of which have been commissioned by Irene Papas, with whom he has frequently collaborated.
The late Michael Joyce, of the National Theatre of Great Britain and the Samuel Beckett Centre, cited Meagher as “the finest living translator of Greek drama.”
Reviews
“An eloquent and memorable study of Herakles Gone Mad and a wonderfully performable, vivid new translation of the play.” — Jonathan Shay, author of Odysseus in America: Combat Trauma and the Trials of Homecoming
“Robert Emmet Meagher’s brilliant rendering of Euripides’ Herakles once again proves that he is the finest translator of ancient Greek drama in English”as relevant today as it was the day it was first written in ancient Greek.” — Michael Elliot Rutenberg, Professor of Theater, Hunter College, City University of New York
Additional information
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