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Date: Sat, 13 Mar 1999 20:47:15 -0800
To: classics@u.washington.edu
From: dlupher@ups.edu (David Lupher)
Subject: Re: Eliot's Euripides and Mr. Murray (damn long)

Patrick T. Rourke writes that T.S. Eliot
>      based "The Family Reunion" on the Oresteia, and "The Cocktail Party"
>on the Alcestis - and I believe that "Murder in the Cathedral" owes a debt
>first to Milton's Samson Agonistes, and through SA to the Prometheus Bound

And "The Elder Statesman" was based on the OC.  (It's not Eliot's most
memorable play, so PTR is to be forgiven for passing over it in silence.)

Much later in his thought-provoking posting, PTR confesses:
>I don't want to say much about Frost; I don't know his work terribly well
>and dislike what I've read mostly, I think, because of the uses to which pop
>culture has put it, not on its own terms - Frost has become something of a
>poetic Norman Rockwell [snip]

Give "Acquainted with the Night" a try.  No Rockwellian folksiness there.
I hate to agree with Yvor Winters more than is absolutely necessary, but
I believe he was right when he identified this as Frost's finest poem.
(See his hatchet job on Frost in "The Function of Criticism.")

Thanks to PTR for printing Mary Barnard's version of Sappho's "Poikilothron."
He adds:
>I can't think of a "good" version of this poem, though I do like
>Davenport's; Lattimore's is probably the most unobjectionable (I've tried my
>hand at it myself, but couldn't do it):

Have you looked at the version by the list's own Elizabeth Vandiver?  
It used to be accessible through the Diotima website---I hope it still is.
I, too, have had a stab at translating it---in fact, I recently had the 
vanity-tickling experience of hearing it sung in a senior recital in
a setting by a very talented composition major---but Elizabeth's 
version is better than mine. 

David Lupher
Classics Program
Univ. of Puget Sound


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