Book cover for Bakkhai: Euripides by Euripides and Reginald Gibbons
2001 Released
160 Pages
2-3 Hours
Ebook Unavailable
Audiobook Unavailable
Hardback Unavailable
Oxford University PressISBN 9780195125986
Regarded by many as Euripides' masterpiece, Bakkhai is a powerful examination of religious ecstasy and the resistance to it. A call for moderation, it rejects the temptation of pure reason as well as pure sensuality, and is a staple of Greek tragedy, representing in structure and thematics an exemplary model of the classic tragic elements.

Disguised as a young holy man, the god Bacchus arrives in Greece from Asia proclaiming his godhood and preaching his orgiastic religion. He expects to be embraced in Thebes, but the Theban king, Pentheus, forbids his people to worship him and tries to have him arrested. Enraged, Bacchus drives Pentheus mad and leads him to the mountains, where Pentheus' own mother, Agave, and the women of Thebes tear him to pieces in a Bacchic frenzy.

Gibbons, a prize-winning poet, and Segal, a renowned classicist, offer a skilled new translation of this central text of Greek tragedy.

Euripides

Charles Martin is a poet, translator, and essayist. The author of seven books of poems and translator of Catullus and Ovid, he is the recipient of an Academy Award in Literature from the American Academy and Institute of Arts and Letters, a Bess Hokin Prize from Poetry magazine, and fellowships from the Ingram Merrill Foundation and the National Endowment for the Arts.
 
A.E. Stallings is an American poet and translator who lives in Athens, Greece. Her most recent books are LIKE: Poems and a translation of Hesiod’s Works and Days.
 

More by Euripides

Reginald Gibbons

Reginald Gibbons is the author of fourteen books of poems, including Creatures of a Day, a finalist for the National Book Award. He has also published volumes of fiction, essays, and translations. A native of Texas, he now lives in Evanston, Illinois, where he is the Frances Hooper Professor Emeritus in the Arts and Humanities at Northwestern University.

More by Reginald Gibbons

Why Readwise Books?

Readwise Books is an ebook & audiobook platform that automatically logs how much you and your friends read, making it fun and easy to read more. Learn more →