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Do you prefer Aeschylus or Sophocles? The animated video embedded above features a five-minute lesson that explores Greek tragedies.

Over at the TED-Ed website, viewers can access a quiz, a discussion board, and more resources. Click here to download free digital copies of the plays of both Aeschylus and Sophocles.

With Greek tragedies filling major venues in London in recent months, I have been daydreaming about awarding my personal ancient Greek Oscars, to be called “Golden Nikes” (pedantic footnote: Nike was the Goddess of Victory, not of Trainers). There has been Medea at the National Theatre, Electra (Sophocles’ one) at the Old Vic, and Antigone, just opened at the Barbican. There are yet more productions lined up for The Globe, Donmar and RSC.

The post The ‘Golden Nikes’ for Greek tragedy appeared first on OUPblog.

This selection of ancient Greek literature includes philosophy, poetry, drama, and history. It introduces some of the great classical thinkers, whose ideas have had a profound influence on Western civilization.

Jason and the Golden Fleece by Apollonius of Rhodes

Apollonius’ Argonautica is the dramatic story of Jason’s voyage in the Argo in search of the Golden Fleece, and how he wins the aid of the Colchian princess and sorceress Medea, as well as her love. Written in the third century BC, it was influential on the Latin poets Catullus and Ovid, as well as on Virgil’s Aeneid.

Poetics by Aristotle

This short treatise has been described as the most influential book on poetry ever written. It is a very readable consideration of why art matters which also contains practical advice for poets and playwrights that is still followed today.

The Trojan Women and Other Plays by Euripides

One of the greatest Greek tragedians, Euripides wrote at least eighty plays, of which seventeen survive complete. The universality of his themes means that his plays continue to be performed and adapted all over the world. In this volume three great war plays, The Trojan Women, Hecuba, and Andromache, explore suffering and the endurance of the female spirit in the aftermath of bloody conflict.

The Histories by Herodotus

Herodotus was called “the father of history” by Cicero because the scale on which he wrote had never been attempted before. His history of the Persian Wars is an astonishing achievement, and is not only a fascinating history of events but is full of digression and entertaining anecdote. It also provokes very interesting questions about historiography.

The Iliad by Homer

Homer’s two great epic poems, the Odyssey and the Iliad, have created stories that have enthralled readers for thousands of year. The Iliad describes a tragic episode during the siege of Troy, sparked by a quarrel between the leader of the Greek army and its mightiest warrior, Achilles; Achilles’ anger and the death of the Trojan hero Hector play out beneath the watchful gaze of the gods.

Republic by Plato

Plato’s dialogue presents Socrates and other philosophers discussing what makes the ideal community. It is essentially an enquiry into morality, and why justice and goodness are fundamental. Harmonious human beings are as necessary as a harmonious society, and Plato has profound things to say about many aspects of life. The dialogue contains the famous myth of the cave, in which only knowledge and wisdom will liberate man from regarding shadows as reality.

Greek Lives by Plutarch

Plutarch wrote forty-six biographies of eminent Greeks and Romans in a series of paired, or parallel, Lives. This selection of nine Greek lives includes Alexander the Great, Pericles, and Lycurgus, and the Lives are notable for their insights into personalities, as well as for what they reveal about such things as the Spartan regime and social system.

Antigone, Oedipus the King, Electra by Sophocles

In these three masterpieces Sophocles established the foundation of Western drama. His three central characters are faced with tests of their will and character, and their refusal to compromise their principles has terrible results. Antigone and Electra are bywords for female resolve, while Oedipus’ discovery that he has committed both incest and patricide has inspired much psychological analysis, and given his name to Freud’s famous complex.

Heading image: Porch of Maidens by Thermos. CC BY-SA 2.5 via Wikimedia Commons.

The post A reading list of Ancient Greek classics appeared first on OUPblog.

        

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If you write fiction, should you write light copy or dark? Is the choice like that of light or dark turkey at Thanksgiving? Does your preference reflect your inner workings or your reading preference? And does it matter?

Authors like Stephen King write both. A reader doesn’t normally think of the author of “Carrie,” and “The Green Mile,” as writing “Faithful: Two Diehard Boston Red Sox Fans Chronicle the Historic 2004 Season.” In case you’re wondering, he also wrote another book on baseball, too.

Poets explore both paths to find explanations and impressions of the world’s workings and their own. Finding the humanity in dark literature isn’t new. It has a long tradition.

Mary Shelley created Frankenstein as more than a dark novel. The story roams through the reader’s mind as a look into a sinner’s guilt and requisite redemption, a romance set within the framework of a nightmare, and a glimpse of the terror-ridden existence of a life that should never have arisen. Like King, Shelley rolled human fears and motivations into a neat bundle and served it up as dark meat for the reader.

But Shelley was hardly the first to venture into the realm of shadows, sin, and the seamier side of life. The ancient Greek playwrights Aeschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides gave the world dark tragedy with attitude. Their plays, such as Sophocles’ Oedipus Rex, certainly weren’t meant for the faint of heart.

These stage ventures also contained romance, sin and redemption themes, Gods—vengeful and otherwise–and human frailty. These ancient writers set more than the Greek stage. They put civilization on the road of writing works that drew the viewer into another’s tragedy, or comedy, and sent the mind spinning off into realms of distraction from the viewer’s everyday experience.

Comedy such as the wildly satirical work of Aristophanes allowed the audience to laugh instead of cry at the doings of man. The playwright used the play’s chorus to deliver scathing humor at the expense of the drama.  This playwright, 2000 years later, continues to rank as a master of dark comedy with a twist.

Today’s writers strive for the same effect. Stephanie Meyer’s “Twilight” series follows Shelley’s trademark theme. Vampires, too, seem to be created by others with agendas to keep.

Writers have a choice of how they present their ideas about the world and the players in it. Romance makes way for tragedy, while comedy lands on its feet next to the potential absurdity of fantasy, as that genre tries to remake history with personal ideals and mythical creat

Report: Luis Alfaro's adaptation of Sophocles' Oedipus Tyrannos, Oedipus El Rey. A staged reading performed at the Getty Villa, Pacific Palisades, Califas.

Michael Sedano
The recently completed run of Oedipus El Rey’s four performances has been one of those only in Los Angeles classical theatre experiences made possible by the Getty Museum's Villa Theater Lab. Last year, it was Culture Clash’s uniquely staged Aristophanes The Birds. This year it has been Alfaro and earlier in February, Ellen McLaughlin’s one-woman original work, Penelope. Upcoming in April and May are Director Michael Hackett and actor Henry Goodman with Sophocles Philoktetes, followed by Chicago's Lookingglass Theatre Company in a new work, Icarus. At $7 a head, the Getty offers the best bargain in El Lay arts (add $8 for parking).

Alfaro’s done it again with Oedipus El Rey, turning in a remarkable treatment of other people’s material. A few years ago it was Black Butterfly, Jaguar Girl, Piñata Woman and Other Superhero Girls Like Me, turning short fiction and poetry by the superb trio of Alma Cervantes, Sandra C. Muñoz, Marisela Norte into a devastatingly funny and moving masterpiece. Then it was Electricidad, borrowed from Sophocles, that, unlike Black Butterfly, made it to the Mark Taper main stage. Now Alfaro has adapted Sophocles’ Oedipus Tyrannos moving it from plague-ridden Thebes to a modern-day California. Joined by director Jon Lawrence Rivera and a superb cast with first-among-equals Marlene Forte’s Jocasta, Oedipus El Rey will breathe new life into classical drama, and educate a new generation to the actual meaning of “oedipal”.

Evidently, such renewal is long overdue. Alfaro laughed at the audibly stunned college audience Friday night when Justin Huen’s Oedipus comes to his own realization that the man he killed on Highway 99 was his father, which means Oedipus’ wife is…gasp!! These young people must have been reeling at that point, as they thought back to their laughter following the torrid mating scene when Huen and Forte undress one another then spend three weeks cavorting in bed.

There is not much laughter in Sophocles’ play, but Alfaro injects a hugely hilarious Sphinx into the action. The Million Dollar Farmacia on Broadway is run by a three-headed critter straight out of rasquachi teatro with a strong affinity to the twin-headed beast from Men in Black 2. After solving the riddle, the old gals are out of business and the Pico-Union barrio returns to its old order. Here the overlay of ancient Thebes upon modern LA doesn’t work so well and is stretched too thin. Oedipus and Jocasta have the community’s respect. They behave like cold-hearted Don Corleones rather than the gangbangers in the news whose power derives from intimidation and extortion, not doing favors for community people while maintaining a kingly dignity and honor. And therein lies the major problem with this work-in-progress.

Turning stereotypes on their heads is part of the job description of a revolutionary poet, to affirm what would otherwise be vilified even within la cultura . And when a gifted poet is himself a pinto, his themes and images resonate with gut-wrenching authenticity. Which is why work of the late raúlrsalinas, “A Trip Through the Mindjail”, and Ricardo Sánchez, “Soledad”, should be included in any anthology of letras chicanas, along with such non-pinto pachuco poems as José Montoya’s “El Louie”, Tino Villanueva’s “Aquellos Vatos”, and J.L. Navarro’s “To A Dead Lowrider.” Powerful work that was necessary for its time.

But that was the 60s and 70s. Chicano culture has reached a kind of maturity today, and there’s less, if any, requirement to lionize our criminals. Pintos are not heroes, and they’re certainly not gods. Yet jail is where Luis Alfaro starts off his work-in-progress Oedipus el Rey, and pintos form his Chorus. It’s a strangely inappropriate starting point that Alfaro explains in the program like this: “the more versions (of Sophocles) I read, the deeper the themes of the play started to take root inside my head. I began to obsess about the notion of destiny. Well, of course, that little idea kept me awake for endless nights. Aren’t we all masters of our own destinies? That got me thinking about the sizable population that makes up our ever-expanding prison system.” Destiny? That got me thinking what about our kids who see the military as their only chance off the block?

Fortunately, Oedipus El Rey will change and grow. As Alfaro and director Jon Lawrence Rivera (pictured right,left respectively) noted during the post performance Talkback session on Saturday afternoon, Alfaro didn’t have much of anything finished even as the superb cast came together for the first rehearsal. Rivera, Alfaro, and presumably dramaturg Christopher Breyer (his name didn't come up in the Talkback), indulged the playwright’s stream of consciousness for this set of staged readings. I hope they’ll iron out the prison wrinkle in favor of something more appropriate both to Sophocles and for a contemporary audience. That noted, John H. Binkley’s spare set is beautiful and need not be changed in a finished production. Stainless steel cables hang from the ceiling suggesting the cages these men live in, and a handful of black chairs. Elizabeth Huffman’s costumes are a few red shawls, two shirts for Huen, two dresses for Forte, the other actors appear in their streetclothes. Dark glasses and cane for blind Tiresias (Winston J. Rocha) constitute the props.

I attended in the company of two high school girls. As we left the auditorium, I asked them how they reacted to the graphic profanity of the opening three minutes. “We hear worse than that in school every day,” they answered in unison, not that they enjoyed it. Their mother shrugged helplessly at that truth. Although the Getty forewarns, “This workshop contains adult themes and strong language”—it is Oedipus after all so adult themes definitely come with the territory. But strangely, only that opening dialog featured foul language. Worse, it was neither artful nor funny, neither authentic nor effective. I’d like to sit Alfaro down and pull his ear about that crap, encourage him to find what Villanueva said about his vatos, they were “uncouth but squared away”.

The cast includes gente you’ve seen and will continue seeing on television, movies, and regional theatre. Laius is Geno Silva, perfectly mature and powerful. Michael Manuel as a sappy Creon. Javi Mulero, Daniel Chacón, Bobby Plasencia play several roles but especially the three-headed hilarious Sphinx. Híjole, guys, don't change a thing, in fact, give us more!

That's the view from the coast this penultimate Tuesday of 2008's leap year February. Ordinarily, La Bloga runs Monday through Friday and many Sundays. RudyG's delayed Valentine on Saturday is a good reminder it's always good to check in on weekends, a ver que pasa. Remember, La Bloga welcomes and encourages guest columnists. Let us know in a comment or an email that you have something to share. If it fits, if it's finished, let La Bloga's readers share it with you. We love your comments, but La Bloga apologizes in advance if some spammer drops their piece of you-know-what on our pages. We'll delete it as soon as we notice it. Until next Tuesday, hay les wachamos.

mvs

I’m sitting in a hotel room in Santa Fe, New Mexico. We arrived a couple hours ago and just came back from eating tacos and hot green and red chili. But I’ll blog about that once we’ve finished our time here. Over the past few days we were in Oklahoma and Amarillo, TX, so I’ll catch you up on that. Karen helped out with today’s blog. She wrote the section on Palo Duro Canyon near Amarillo, TX (below, in a different font).

OKLAHOMA CITY LOOKED OH SO PRETTY

We arrived in OKC from Dallas on Thursday evening. There, we stayed with our friends Rich Schwab and Margaret Mantooth Schwab. They were incredibly nice to us, and took the day off on Friday just to drive us around. Thanks, Rich and Margaret!

COX TV

First stop in Oklahoma City, I was interviewed on “Read All About It,” a state-wide show about books and authors that's produced by the Metropolitan Library System for Cox TV. Now, I can’t say I’m used to being interviewed on talk shows, but boy-oh, this was fun. First, they put make-up on me (not sure why—isn’t the pasty-white look in?), then I hung out in the green room with other guests, including some way-cool local librarians, one of whom was doing a review on the novel Rules by my friend Cynthia Lord. Then they called me to the set. I was on for about eight minutes, interviewed by BJ Williams, the show’s producer and host. We talked about Lemonade Mouth and the tour, etc., etc. I think it went well, but who am I to say? It was my first time. I’ll get a copy of it whenever I can. :-)

Thanks to BJ Williams and Cox TV! Hats off to "Read All About It" -- what a wonderful way to promote books and reading!


Best Of Books

Later that afternoon we stopped at Best of Books, a terrific store in Edmond, OK, where Julie Hovis and Kathy Kinasewitz, the co-owners, were great to my family and me. The store has been in business for years, and it’s carved out a niche as one of the few independent booksellers in the area.

While there I ran into an old friend from Massachusetts, Meredith Pearlman, who had made the drive from Tulsa to see us--she moved to Oklahoma only three months ago. It was so great to see you, Meredith!


We made a stop at the memorial for the Oklahoma City bombing of 1995. It was very moving. They have a place for kids to leave messages in chalk. Evan, Lucy, and Zoe each left one.


Uh-Oh. Oil Trouble!

We were driving around the city when suddenly a light started flashing on our car’s dashboard – it was an oil can. Uh oh, oil trouble. So we made a quick detour to the local Honda dealer, where Stephen Sponsler did a quick diagnosis – we were almost completely out of oil! Yikes! We must have a leak, but it must be a slow one because after he changed the oil he didn’t see the car lose any more. So, new strategy: We’ll check the oil every 500 miles or so!


While we were waiting for the oil situation to get resolved, we stopped into a local Barnes and Noble, where we met Chuck Ackerly and Dean Kraushaar. A cool way to spend the pit stop!

IN AMARILLO, WE GRABBED A PILLOW

On Saturday (yesterday), it was goodbye Oklahoma, and back into Texas. We arrived in Amarillo where, in accordance with the old classic song, we grabbed a pillow.


Karen wrote the next part:

Camping in Palo Duro Canyon
KAREN: On Saturday night we went camping in Palo Duro Canyon, near Amarillo, TX.



It was a wild experience. First, we set up camp at the bottom of the canyon (the 2^nd biggest in the US)! We spread out our tent on the hard red dirt covering all of the ants and other variations on bugs. The minute we got there, we were all being eaten alive by bugs. I could tell right away that I could never have been a cow girl. Even though I’ve camped in the past and loved it, I was already dreaming of a comfy bed in the air conditioning. Lucy, Zoe, and Evan were complaining about being bitten, Mark was complaining about how hot it was (it was 7pm), so I knew it would be a long night especially when Mark announced to the kids that if they see a Rattlesnake, don’t try to poke it with a stick! Rattlesnakes, no one prepared me for this!! The kids started to freak...who could blame them? Next we had dinner, no fire of course because we were too hot and would have roasted even more. Who told me that it cools down in the desert at night??

That evening we went to an amazing musical show called “Texas” in an amphitheater actually in the Canyon. It was all about Texas history, songs and there were even fireworks!



I liked the show so much, I even started thinking it would be fun to be a real Texan. I was amazed at how the Texan settlers could live here! Ok, so I could make it one night, why not?!

Wrong!

I was up all night listening to various interesting sounds of wildlife. While the family snored happily, I kept thinking of all those Rattlesnakes. I swear I heard some close by slithering. Mark thinks I was imagining things, but I DON’T THINK SO!! The next morning Mark admitted that the park ranger warned him that there was a “bumper crop” of Rattlesnakes in the canyon this year. Enough said!!

The next morning, getting up at 7 am with 3 hours of sleep and all wet because there was a lot of dew all night (so much for comfortable sleeping in the dry desert), we rushed to pack up camp, eat and dress to be presentable because in one hour we were going to be interviewed by the Amarillo NBC TV station at Barnes & Noble! Can you believe this? The only time in my life that I was a actually going to be on TV is after spending a night camping full of dirt and bug bites…so much for any beauty rest! I’ll let Mark tell you the rest, I’m fading from exhaustion!

(I just re-read this and although it sounds like I had a miserable time, it was a great adventure I wouldn’t have missed. We really are having a great time. Our next camping trip might include bears. I’ll let you know if we go do it and I don’t chicken out!)

ANOTHER TV INTERVIEW!

MARK: Jeez, I can’t believe I’m still typing. This was an action-packed few days! So, in Amarillo, TX this morning the local NBC-TV affiliate (KAMR) was there to interview us! They have a weekly series on families doing stuff together, so our trip kinda fit in. (Note, this gig was due entirely to the amazing promotional efforts of my friend Tyler Jensen who, out of sheer kindness, sent out a funny email to media outlets all over the known world, telling them about our road-trip. Thanks, Tyler! You da best!) for the interview, Evan stole the show when he described the camping experience and gave an enthusiastic, detailed tour of the van. They loved him so much they ran out of videotape filming him. No kidding!

The series runs every Friday, part of the local evening news. Our story is scheduled for four Fridays AFTER this Friday. Faith, the local news anchor (she was the one doing the interviews!) promises to let me know when it runs, and how I can get a copy of it. I’ll get the word out when I have access to the video. :-)

KIMBERLY WILLIS HOLT
We were very lucky to meet up with Kimberly Willis Holt and her husband Jerry for coffee. Kimberly is the New York Times bestselling author of such books as When Zachary Beaver Came to Town, My Louisiana Sky and Waiting For Gregory. Such nice people! We ended up chatting for quite a while. :-)

Finally, here’s a picture of Samantha Adkins and Cassie Mason, two soon-to-be high-school seniors who we met in Amarillo. Among other things we talked about Harry Potter and his unknown fate—which will be known later this week. Nice to meet you, Samantha and Cassie!

Next stop: Santa Fe!