Customer Reviews

Aeschylus: The Oresteia (Landmarks of World Literature (New))

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

Only three reviews of this work have been posted. One is part of a determined vendetta against Goldhill; one a corrective to that, and a third that says nothing.
This book was first written in 1984, probably as Goldhill's dissertation. It is an extremely difficult read, combining what were then new fields of semasiology, onomasiology, structural anthropology,and performance criticism of drama. The vocabularies of these fields were likely not even settled at that time, a situation which would help explain why the book is such a hard read, the reason it gets but 4 stars in this review. It is clearly meant to put a wide-angle anastigmatic lens on the vision of the Greek commentaries of the past which focus on issues of text criticism and the scholarly controversies surrounding them. As one must own Fraenkel to read Agamemnon, one must now possess Goldhill to read the Oresteia in Greek. Warning: plan to spend a month going through it, even if your Greek skills are up to snuff.

This book may be concise but it is nevertheless absorbing. Probably the best text available on the topic, and excellently written also. Recommended.

This book is a winner. In a few short pages, Goldhill offers the best up-to-date introduction to the Oresteia, with attention to language, plot, cultural background, and dramatic structure. You can't do better.

Badly written, replete with glaring and basic errors that one would expect even a first year undergraduate to spot - how on earth did this man find employment in Cambridge University? Worth reading for that mystery, but for no other reason.