The Golden Fleece

Grillparzer, Franz, 1791-1872Project Gutenberg · United StatesDec 2019

Rating 4.0

Word count: 239K words
Chapters: 24

Summary

Project Gutenberg was the first provider of free electronic books, or eBooks. Michael Hart, founder of Project Gutenberg, invented eBooks in 1971 and his memory continues to inspire the creation of eBooks and related technologies today.Das goldene Vließ by Franz GrillparzerAuthor: Grillparzer, Franz, 1791-1872,Language: German, Class: PT: Language and Literatures: Germanic, Scandinavian, and Icelandic literatures, Release Date: Apr 1, 2005

Editor's review

Das goldene Vließ (The Golden Fleece) is a representative play by the Austrian dramatist Franz Grillparzer. Drawing on the Greek myth of Jason and Medea and written in German, it is an important text for the study of German literature and classical drama. Rather than simply retelling the myth, the work uses Medea's tragic fate to explore the outsider's plight, desire and betrayal, and the tension between civilization and barbarism; its psychological portraiture is finely wrought, and its language has the solemnity of Viennese classical drama. As a free electronic text from Project Gutenberg, it is easy to search and read alongside other versions, making it suitable as supplementary material for German drama courses or as a primary text for research on mythic adaptation. Readers are advised to read it in light of the ancient Greek mythological background and the social context of nineteenth-century Austria, paying attention to the author's reshaping of Medea's image. Because it is in the original German and lacks modern annotation, beginners should use it together with a translation or introduction in order to appreciate its dramatic structure and intellectual depth.

Who it's for

A good fit for

Students of German literature who need to study nineteenth-century Austrian dramatic texts
Researchers of classical mythic adaptation concerned with the literary evolution of the Medea theme
Readers with intermediate to advanced German reading ability who enjoy classical tragedy
Theater enthusiasts who want to understand the stage tradition of German classical drama

Not a good fit for

Readers with no knowledge of German, for whom the original text poses a high barrier
Readers who prefer fast-paced modern fiction and have little patience for classical dramatic form
Casual readers who only want a summary of the myth and do not intend to read the text closely

Reading tips

First learn the outline of the Jason and Medea myth before entering the play, to reduce background obstacles
Read scene by scene alongside a Chinese or English translation to help with understanding the German dramatic language
Pay attention to Medea's monologues and trace her psychological changes and the causes of her tragedy
After reading, compare with other plays by Grillparzer to see how he handles classical subjects

About the publisher

Project Gutenberg United States · Founded in 1971

Project Gutenberg is a digital publishing project focused on public-domain ebooks. Its publishing direction centers on classic literary works whose copyright has expired, covering genres such as poetry, drama, fiction, and epic. Representative books include Lyrical Ballads by Wordsworth and Coleridge, Proust's Du côté de chez Swann, Shakespeare's Macbeth and The Complete Works of William Shakespeare, Homer's The Iliad, Dante's La Divina Comèdia: Purgatòri, Cervantes's The History of Don Quixote, Volume 2, and Grahame's The Wind in the Willows. Its author resources consist mainly of classic Western writers such as Wordsworth, Proust, Shakespeare, Homer, Dante, Cervantes, Grahame, and Tolstoy. Its publishing feature is the provision of freely accessible ebooks in EPUB and Kindle formats; it is not a traditional publisher, and publicly available information is limited.

FAQ

Is this book a novel or a play?

This is a dramatic work by Grillparzer, written in play form with character dialogue and stage directions rather than as a narrative novel. It can be read scene by scene, imagining the effect of a stage performance.

Can I read it if my German is only average?

The original is in nineteenth-century German, with sentence structures and vocabulary of some difficulty. Intermediate and above readers can read it with annotations or a translation; beginners are advised to read a Chinese translation first, then compare selected passages with the original.

Does this edition include annotations or an introduction?

This edition is a public-domain electronic text provided by Project Gutenberg and usually contains only the main text, without modern scholarly annotations or an introduction. For background material, consult relevant research literature or the appendices of translations separately.

Why is this play worth reading?

It transforms an ancient Greek myth into a tragedy exploring the outsider, desire, and betrayal; its portrayal of Medea has psychological depth, and it is an important text for understanding nineteenth-century German drama and mythic adaptation.

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About the author

Grillparzer, Franz, 1791-1872 Author

Franz Grillparzer (1791–1872) was an Austrian dramatist and novelist. Publicly available information on the details of his life is limited, but the works he left behind are enough to show his important place in the history of German-language literature. Many of his plays draw on history and classical legend: König Ottokars Glück und Ende and Ein Bruderzwist in Habsburg deal with the rise and fall of dynasties and conflicts over power, while Das goldene Vließ and Medea retell ancient Greek myths. He also wrote works such as Die Jüdin von Toledo, which involves entanglements of love and politics, and Der arme Spielmann, which portrays with delicate strokes the fate of ordinary people. His plays are tightly structured and written in concise language, and he was skilled at revealing his characters' psychological conflicts and moral dilemmas within historical frameworks, exerting a lasting influence on the later development of Austrian drama.