Ebook62 pages1 hour
Philoctetes
By Sophocles
Rating: 2 out of 5 stars
2/5
()
About this ebook
The winner of the Festival of Dionysus in 409 BC, 'Philoctetes' describes the attempt by Neoptolemus and Odysseus to bring disabled master archer, Philoctetes, with them to Troy. The play covers several deep, contentious themes, including moral relativity, trauma, love vs. hatred, and friendship vs. enmity.
Author
Sophocles
Sophocles is one of three ancient Greek tragedians whose plays have survived. His first plays were written later than or contemporary with those of Aeschylus, and earlier than or contemporary with those of Euripides.
Read more from Sophocles
The Burial at Thebes: A Version of Sophocles' Antigone Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Yale Required Reading - Collected Works (Vol. 1) Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Ajax Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsPlays of Sophocles: Oedipus the King; Oedipus at Colonus; Antigone: Bestsellers and famous Books Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Harvard Classics: All 71 Volumes Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsElektra: A New Translation Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Oedipus Rex Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsYale Classics (Vol. 1) Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Three Theban Plays Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsElectra and Other Plays Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsAjax Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsAias Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Women of Trakhis: A New Translation Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5The Oedipus Trilogy: Oedipus the King, Oedipus at Colonus, Antigone Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Theban Plays: "Oedipus the Tyrant"; "Oedipus at Colonus"; "Antigone" Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsAias: A New Translation Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Ajax Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsPhiloctetes Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Antigone (Translated by E. H. Plumptre with an Introduction by J. Churton Collins) Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsFive Great Greek Tragedies Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5
Related to Philoctetes
Related ebooks
Aias Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Alcestis Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Prometheus Bound Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Philoctetes Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Hecuba Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Seven against Thebes Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsOedipus at Colonus Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Electra Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Every Man in His Humour Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Complete Plays of Jean Racine Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsBerenice Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Medea Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Othello Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Adelphoe (The Brothers): 'I am human and I think nothing of which is human is alien to me'' Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsPlays by August Strindberg, Second series Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Three Sisters: A drama in four acts Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Suppliants Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Lysistrata Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsDido, Queen of Carthage by Christopher Marlowe - Delphi Classics (Illustrated) Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsAntigone Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Sea-Gull Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsAs You Like It Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Hippolytus Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Persians Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Amphitryon Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Greek Plays: Sixteen Plays by Aeschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides (Modern Library Classics) Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsAll for Love Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Cyclops Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Lysistrata: A Play Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5
Performing Arts For You
The Science of Storytelling: Why Stories Make Us Human and How to Tell Them Better Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Robin Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5As You Wish: Inconceivable Tales from the Making of The Princess Bride Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Diamond Eye: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Macbeth (new classics) Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Count Of Monte Cristo (Unabridged) Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Coreyography: A Memoir Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Becoming Free Indeed: My Story of Disentangling Faith from Fear Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Hamlet Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Sisters Brothers Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Importance of Being Earnest: A Play Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Hollywood's Dark History: Silver Screen Scandals Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5For colored girls who have considered suicide/When the rainbow is enuf Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Yes Please Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Storyworthy: Engage, Teach, Persuade, and Change Your Life through the Power of Storytelling Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Angels in America: A Gay Fantasia on National Themes: Revised and Complete Edition Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5A Dolls House Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Stories I Only Tell My Friends: An Autobiography Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Lucky Dog Lessons: From Renowned Expert Dog Trainer and Host of Lucky Dog: Reunions Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Our Town: A Play in Three Acts Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5A Strange Loop Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Romeo and Juliet Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Unsheltered: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Wuthering Heights Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5A Midsummer Night's Dream, with line numbers Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Mash: A Novel About Three Army Doctors Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Trial Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5A Woman Is No Man: A Read with Jenna Pick Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5
Reviews for Philoctetes
Rating: 2 out of 5 stars
2/5
1 rating4 reviews
- Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5A new translation of the old play, this is rendered in modern English, including modern slang. While keeping the basic storyline intact, it loses most of its original poetry. The goal here was plainly to make it more accessible to modern readers who don't want to work too hard at their literature. The ease of reading does not make up for the loss of the ancient sound. The story is another stage in the Trojan war, of a Greek hero left by his shipmates to die of his wounds on a deserted island; now the Greeks want his weapons, which were left with him, and they determine to get them back by deceit or force. A concise telling, not a lot of wasted time, and an interesting legend.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Philoctetes is the story of the moaning hero that Odysseus left on an island but has returned to with Neoptolemus (son of Achilles) to retrieve the bow. In convincing Neoptolemus to take part in his ploy: "I well know, my son, that by nature thou are not apt to utter or contrive such guile; yet, seeing that victory is a sweet prize to gain, bend they will thereto; our honesty shall be shown forth another time. Son of brave sire, time was when I too, in my youth, had a slow tongue and a ready hand: but now, when I come forth to the proof, I see that words, not deeds, are ever the masters among men."
- Rating: 2 out of 5 stars2/5This short play did not really do it for me. The themes expressed, as well as the plot and character development, were not to my liking and seemed to be sorely lacking. These reasons are why I give it it's low ranking.2 stars.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Almost one of the all-time great dramatizations of the wounded heart and psyche. Philoctetes is rejected by his fellows for the stinking wound that he incurs committing an act of kindness that no one else will (lighting Heracles’s funeral pyre); he is exiled to an island, Homo sacer, anti-sirene, to writhe alone and scream and hear his screams echo from the cliffs, mocking his solitude, his lost humanity. But then they need him! And he can speak to people again! And then he’s a person again! And he weeps when Neoptolemus finds him and just sits with him for a while. But it's all a trick—sleazy Odysseus wants his mighty bow for the war effort; and while that hurts, it also puts him in the position fantasized about by everyone who ever felt alone and unloved: the one who can tell them to fuck off and have them beg him to come back and say a hundred times how sorry they are. But just like in real life, they don’t give any more of a shit than they ever did; rather than beg, they trick him again, hurt him once more, compound his trauma. It’s an unresolvable knot, and the play shows that so well—which is why it’s such a shame when Heracles deus ex machinates in to tell Mr Moral High Ground to fucking get in the boat and go kill Paris already. Cheap, I mean by “a shame.” Probably there’s some Greek drama rule why that ending is better and not worse that Aristotle could explain to us, but Aristotle’s not here right now and so this play gets a perhaps unnecessarily punitive four stars.
Book preview
Philoctetes - Sophocles
p.a book_preview_excerpt.html XrK z*dH(qi 4̀'7)APnUTr
/oKU̓''~yڋiJU˰|u~FUS.zIrJMJU,{96n}=lwb}->8V6/js?wq=_.ןyջr^r90Oo/mZ)W*+VmK/+6\V(OYҗ_o&o3c$(5A+c2bKv!u/
ckѕ;C;:=(zQ0K[1ߋ$ m6ʜjiÐonw+I+.>1peMVerI?x)^tny/~?ӗO^>{},(T\iE|ŕўw{N=K얬MV?< zTќ9jXƛɳYyːFZ%`Nt7>!\drV9dXrnfԾd%tU6
[QXSbx[%rCy9ZRp {{kzV\>fMrD`($Ca9a^A^O%n=S#+% Klru7l]ReVVfaO =*Æ!NϩܵEVp;3 ¥{Pw-rZR\Sf) \[b$OǷ:G6i(4! 3 q>.OWdEi,3&VzUPol[F#x~T1M\˧?LzDNp"Gdg{bVr
-Z,?;d\PSEߧ}
/
g loZ_~3qK58TK@хtx619}Rm$ʄqA/m s VLY/̈.Jw̢DY mMh$wc/)
Dg,DДD"['I8D$ef?{ҲNj`O}bq#yU0(#&/ZR2:KCRܥyN5yДІap:/:I
)0o_=aj `S̀6Z?
?p '`_"G'?ɭjL =ڽUmo8t
j
\-̥F!W?^u3Na/ANYAC@m4n)36PkG\h'6XAFhV(W:{,e&XQCF9)T#%gI. -D%cMօ-h7>DܤjR*!l[݅T}{ 2C`G.ǶU;%j2Nߙ >p߃P#+
{
f}25. ?=ƱBn9kWqqH=pi'k`"8?q+.PzgfQ, ހI]L"/gTb 8dÐ OuJ)zD=S<4)QsP| (}ҵd;dS`<ԏR!/IvesO ^wKFUѣm)m dVqla(f ;N'WfHɣp^fDdLel`9tq$/#{8oIqj7 gB s])ᆂk3a։-]S9#'jVtY={BV?ȯF 3`QY YRH bBL|'q%x{dW7 2%co2
Enjoying the preview?
Page 1 of 1