Like the Sophoclean tragedy of the same name, Euripides's Electra deals with the final chapter in the Atreides' dark history and, like Sophocles, Euripides puts Agamemnon's daughter center stage in his play. His treatment of the material is much less well-known, but the way he realistically deheroicizes the characters, the situation, and the atmosphere, creating an entirely new, non-tragic tone, is equally compelling

Bernd Seidensticker, FU Berlin, Germany.