David Grene

David Grene was an Irish-born classicist, translator, teacher, and theatre practitioner whose career became closely associated with the University of Chicago. With Richmond Lattimore, he shaped The Complete Greek Tragedies, a long-running series that brought Greek drama into clear, performable English for students and general readers. Euripides V belongs to that editorial project. The volume has appeared in changing editions, with the 1959 version gathering Electra, The Phoenician Women, and The Bacchae, while the third edition presents Bacchae, Iphigenia in Aulis, The Cyclops, and Rhesus through a revised team of editors and translators. Grene’s contribution was therefore larger than a single rendering: he helped establish the series’ principles and continuity across generations of scholarship. He also translated works by Aeschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides. Euripides V reflects his belief that philological care and dramatic energy could support one another rather than compete.