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vinireadsbooks's review
1.0
I had to read this for class and I hated it. It is a quick read but it’s so boring that it took two weeks to finish just 100 pages.
chris_dech's review
3.0
Honestly not too much to say for this one. I didn't love it, but I didn't hate it. I think there were some interesting ideas here, and I like the message of Prometheus having hope because he knows what's to come. And I like that there's this theme of those who assist the downtrodden being punished by those in power, which is itself a nice idea that has carried on through time.
But yet, I can't shake this feeling that the story itself is a little boring and uninteresting. Don't get me wrong, it's not that there's anything boring about a god being chained and punished despite his powers of foresight and mental acumen. But even with that, it just doesn't land the same as the story of a wife murdering her husband, or two brothers going to war over a throne.
Plus, Agee's translation just doesn't feel totally right to me because of the language jumps made. Maybe I should read another translation of it to see if my opinion changes, but for now, this just doesn't land that hard for me.
But yet, I can't shake this feeling that the story itself is a little boring and uninteresting. Don't get me wrong, it's not that there's anything boring about a god being chained and punished despite his powers of foresight and mental acumen. But even with that, it just doesn't land the same as the story of a wife murdering her husband, or two brothers going to war over a throne.
Plus, Agee's translation just doesn't feel totally right to me because of the language jumps made. Maybe I should read another translation of it to see if my opinion changes, but for now, this just doesn't land that hard for me.
shoba's review
4.0
CHORUS
Did you perhaps go further than you told us?
PROMETHEUS
I gave men power to stop foreseeing their death.
CHORUS
What cure did you prescribe for this disease?
PROMETHEUS
I sowed blind hopes to live as their companions.
I read several translations of this play and watched several performances. Bia( Force and Violence), who stands by quietly, is a character I find fascinating. The translator Joel Agee explains her role in the play in the introduction of the book.
“Bia…does not speak….Bia, as an embodiment of brute force, needs no words. Hephaistos’s hammer expresses her meaning eloquently enough.”
Is it that brute force needs no words because the power is simply self evident? A representation of violence could illicit fear, a feeling of menace, and would prove hard to quantify. And therefore it makes sense that Bia stands quietly to the side while on stage.
I started reading Aeschylus’ Prometheus Bound while reading American Prometheus by Kai Bird and Martin J. Sherwin.
“When it went off…that first atomic bomb, we thought of Alfred Nobel…his vain hope, that dynamite would put an end to wars. We thought of the legend of Prometheus, of that deep sense of guilt in man's new powers, that reflects his recognition of evil, and his long knowledge of it.”
-Robert Oppenheimer
Did you perhaps go further than you told us?
PROMETHEUS
I gave men power to stop foreseeing their death.
CHORUS
What cure did you prescribe for this disease?
PROMETHEUS
I sowed blind hopes to live as their companions.
I read several translations of this play and watched several performances. Bia( Force and Violence), who stands by quietly, is a character I find fascinating. The translator Joel Agee explains her role in the play in the introduction of the book.
“Bia…does not speak….Bia, as an embodiment of brute force, needs no words. Hephaistos’s hammer expresses her meaning eloquently enough.”
Is it that brute force needs no words because the power is simply self evident? A representation of violence could illicit fear, a feeling of menace, and would prove hard to quantify. And therefore it makes sense that Bia stands quietly to the side while on stage.
I started reading Aeschylus’ Prometheus Bound while reading American Prometheus by Kai Bird and Martin J. Sherwin.
“When it went off…that first atomic bomb, we thought of Alfred Nobel…his vain hope, that dynamite would put an end to wars. We thought of the legend of Prometheus, of that deep sense of guilt in man's new powers, that reflects his recognition of evil, and his long knowledge of it.”
-Robert Oppenheimer
caliesha's review
O universal benefactor of mankind,
Ill-starred Prometheus, why are you thus crucified?
Yesterday's train read. Wish the rest of the trilogy survived :(
Ill-starred Prometheus, why are you thus crucified?
Yesterday's train read. Wish the rest of the trilogy survived :(
robbstarks's review
3.0
“o dread majesty of my mother earth, o ether that diffusest thy common light, thou beholdest the wrongs i suffer.”
sonjavhans's review
4.0
a clear and accurate translation with an introduction & notes that cover the most important aspects of the play