Aeschylus - The Complete Greek Tragedies (11 books) torrent

AESCHYLUS (ca. 525/524 BCE - 456/455 BCE) was the first of the three ancient Greek tragedians whose plays can still be read or performed, the others being Sophocles and Euripides. He is often described as the father of tragedy. Our knowledge of the genre begins with his work and our understanding of earlier tragedies is largely based on inferences from his surviving plays.

Only seven of his estimated seventy to ninety plays have survived into modern times, and there is a longstanding debate about his authorship of one of these plays, PROMETHEUS BOUND. Fragments of some other plays have survived in quotes and more continue to be discovered on Egyptian papyrus, often giving us surprising insights into his work. He was probably the first dramatist to present plays as a trilogy; his ORESTEIA is the only ancient example of the form to have survived.

At least one of his works was influenced by the Persian invasion of Greece, which took place during his lifetime. THE PERSIANS is the only extant classical Greek tragedy concerned with recent history and it is a useful source of information about that period. So important was the war to Aeschylus and the Greeks that, upon his death, his epitaph commemorated his participation in the Greek victory at Marathon rather than his success as a playwright.


The following books are in PDF format unless otherwise indicated:

* AGAMEMNON (Orange Street Press Classics, 1998). Translated by E. D. A. Morshead.

* THE AGAMEMNON OF AESCHYLUS, with Verse Translation, Introduction and Notes (1901; reprinted Cambridge University Press, 2009). Edited by W. Headlam and A. C. Pearson.

* THE CHOEPHORI (Libation Bearers) (Orange Street Press Classics, 1998). Translated by E. D. A. Morshead.

* CHOEPHORI (Oxford University Press, 1986). Edited with an Introduction and Commentary by A. F. Garvie.

* THE COMPLETE AESCHYLUS, Vol. 1: The Oresteia (Oxford University Press, 2003). Edited by Peter Burian and Alan Shapiro. -- ePUB

* THE COMPLETE AESCHYLUS, Vol. 2: Persians & Other Plays (Oxford University Press, 2009). Edited by Peter Burian and Alan Shapiro.

* THE COMPLETE GREEK TRAGEDIES, Vol. 1: Aeschylus (University of Chicago Press, 1959). Edited by David Grene and Richard Lattimore.

* THE EUMENIDES (Orange Street Press Classics, 1998). Translated by E. D. A. Morshead.

* THE ORESTEIA (Penguin, 1975). Translated by Robert Fagles. -- ePUB

* PERSIANS & OTHER PLAYS (Oxford University Press, 2008). Translated by Christopher Collard.

* SEVEN AGAINST THEBES (Oxford University Press, 1973). Translated by Anthony Hecht and Helen H. Bacon.