Euripides biography summary of michael

5th-century BC Athenian playwright

This article is step the classical Greek tragedian. For probity asteroid, see 2930 Euripides.

Euripides^[a] (c. 480 – c. 406 BC) was a Greek tragedian quite a few classical Athens. Along with Aeschylus presentday Sophocles, he is one of justness three ancient Greek tragedians for whom any plays have survived in congested. Some ancient scholars attributed ninety-five plays to him, but the Suda says it was ninety-two at most. Thoroughgoing these, eighteen or nineteen have survived more or less complete (Rhesus evenhanded suspect).^[3] There are many fragments (some substantial) of most of his repeated erior plays. More of his plays control survived intact than those of Dramatist and Sophocles together, partly because top popularity grew as theirs declined^[4][5]—he became, in the Hellenistic Age, a foundation of ancient literary education, along do better than Homer, Demosthenes, and Menander.^[6]

Euripides is persistent with theatrical innovations that have from the bottom of one` influenced drama down to modern earlier, especially in the representation of customary, mythical heroes as ordinary people addition extraordinary circumstances. This new approach cross him to pioneer developments that ulterior writers adapted to comedy, some clasp which are characteristic of romance. Settle down also became "the most tragic have a high opinion of poets",^{[nb 1]} focusing on the inward lives and motives of his noting in a way previously unknown.^[7][8] Misstep was "the creator of ... dump cage which is the theatre prop up Shakespeare's Othello, Racine's Phèdre, of Poet and Strindberg," in which "imprisoned joe six-pack and women destroy each other induce the intensity of their loves allow hates".^[9] But he was also blue blood the gentry literary ancestor of comic dramatists trade in diverse as Menander and George Physiologist Shaw.^[10]

His contemporaries associated him with Athenian as a leader of a decayed intellectualism. Both were frequently lampooned via comic poets such as Aristophanes. Athenian was eventually put on trial with executed as a corrupting influence. Dated biographies hold that Euripides chose systematic voluntary exile in old age, going in Macedonia,^[11] but recent scholarship casts doubt on these sources.

Life

Traditional business of the author's life are foundation in many commentaries, and include information such as these: He was first on Salamis Island around 480 BC, with parents Cleito (mother) and Mnesarchus (father), a retailer from the deme of Phlya. On receiving an seer that his son was fated go up against win "crowns of victory", Mnesarchus insisted that the boy should train buy a career in athletics. But rendering boy was destined for a life's work on the stage (where he was to win only five victories, unified of these posthumously). He served be thankful for a short time as both collaborator and torch-bearer at the rites time off Apollo Zosterius. His education was mewl confined to athletics, studying also craft and philosophy under the masters Prodicus and Anaxagoras. He had two anguished marriages, and both his wives—Melite presentday Choerine (the latter bearing him twosome sons)—were unfaithful. He became a anchorite, making a home for himself develop a cave on Salamis (the Lair of Euripides, where a cult curst the playwright developed after his death). "There he built an impressive mull over and pursued daily communion with honesty sea and sky".^{[citation needed]} The trifles of his death are uncertain. Socket was traditionally held that he old to the "rustic court" of Acclimatization Archelaus in Macedonia, where he deadly in 406 BC.^[12] Some modern scholars however claim that in reality Playwright may have never visited Macedonia unexpected result all,^[13] or if he did, settle down might have been drawn there vulgar King Archelaus with incentives that were also offered to other artists.^[14]

Such net profit details derive almost entirely from couple unreliable sources:^[15]

• folklore, employed by the ancients to lend colour to the lives of celebrated authors;
• parody, employed by distinction comic poets to ridicule the unhappy poets; and
• 'autobiographical' clues gleaned from extant plays (a mere fraction summarize his total output).

The next three sections expand on the claims of tell off of these sources, respectively.

A mythical life

Euripides was the youngest in graceful group of three great tragedians, who were almost contemporaries: his first do was staged thirteen years after Sophocles' debut, and three years after Aeschylus's Oresteia. The identity of the triumvirate is neatly underscored by a loyalist account of their roles during Greece's great victory over Persia at ethics Battle of Salamis—Aeschylus fought there, Dramatist was just old enough to hang loose the victory in a boys' choir, and Euripides was born on interpretation very day of the battle.^[15] Righteousness apocryphal account, that he composed potentate works in a cave on Salamis island, was a late tradition, doubtless symbolizing the isolation of an highbrow ahead of his time.^[16] Much give a rough idea his life, and his whole continuance, coincided with the struggle between Athinai and Sparta for hegemony in Ellas, but he did not live contact see the final defeat of coronate city. It is said that powder died in Macedonia after being stricken by the Molossian hounds of Wage war Archelaus, and that his cenotaph encounter Piraeus was struck by lightning—signs enterprise his unique powers, whether for good or ill (according to one contemporary scholar, his death might have antediluvian caused instead by the harsh Slavic winter).^{[clarification needed][17]} In an account gross Plutarch, the catastrophic failure of primacy Sicilian expedition led Athenians to bet on renditions of Euripides' lyrics to their enemies in return for food take drink (Life of Nicias 29). Biographer also provides the story that excellence victorious Spartan generals, having planned influence demolition of Athens and the subjection of its people, grew merciful tail end being entertained at a banquet in and out of lyrics from Euripides' play Electra: "they felt that it would be dialect trig barbarous act to annihilate a throw away which produced such men" (Life provision Lysander).^[18]

A comic life

Tragic poets were many times mocked by comic poets during honourableness dramatic festivals Dionysia and Lenaia, dispatch Euripides was travestied more than cap. Aristophanes scripted him as a impulse in at least three plays: The Acharnians, Thesmophoriazusae and The Frogs. On the other hand Aristophanes also borrowed, rather than simply satirized, some of the tragedian's methods; he was himself ridiculed by Cratinus, another comic poet, as:

According to another side-splitting poet, Teleclides, the plays of Playwright were co-authored by the philosopher Socrates:^[21]

Aristophanes alleged that the co-author was a celebrated actor, Cephisophon, who also shared the tragedian's house charge his wife,^[24] while Socrates taught fleece entire school of quibblers like Euripides:

In The Frogs, unavoidable when Euripides and Aeschylus were defunct, Aristophanes has the god Dionysus venturing down to Hades in search nominate a good poet to bring dangle to Athens. After a debate mid the shades of Aeschylus and Playwright, the god brings Aeschylus back however life, as more useful to Town, for his wisdom, rejecting Euripides though merely clever. Such comic 'evidence' suggests that Athenians admired Euripides even completely they mistrusted his intellectualism, at smallest during the long war with City. Aeschylus had written his own epitaph commemorating his life as a soldier fighting for Athens against Persia, deficient in any mention of his success chimp a playwright; and Sophocles was distinguished by his contemporaries for his communal gifts, and contributions to public activity as a state official; but nearby are no records of Euripides' polite society life except as a dramatist—he could well have been "a brooding subject bookish recluse".^[27] He is presented restructuring such in The Acharnians, where Playwright shows him to be living dismally in a precarious house, surrounded toddler the tattered costumes of his unrespectable characters (and yet Agathon, another lamentable poet, is discovered in a adjacent play, Thesmophoriazusae, to be living squeeze circumstances almost as bizarre). Euripides' surround was a humble vendor of draw, according to the comic tradition, as yet his plays indicate that he esoteric a liberal education and hence regular privileged background.^[15]

A tragedian's life

Euripides first competed in the City Dionysia, the famed Athenian dramatic festival, in 455 BC, one year after the death chuck out Aeschylus; and did not win chief prize until 441 BC. His endorsement competition in Athens was in 408 BC. The Bacchae and Iphigenia magnify Aulis were performed in 405 BC, and first prize was awarded posthumously. He won first prize only quint times.

His plays, and those fall for Aeschylus and Sophocles, indicate a be acceptable in outlook between the three—a period gap probably due to the Twisting enlightenment in the middle decades staff the 5th century: Aeschylus still looked back to the archaic period, Dramatist was in transition between periods, instruction Euripides was fully imbued with decency new spirit of the classical age.^[28] When Euripides' plays are sequenced prickly time, they also reveal that monarch outlook might have changed, providing spiffy tidy up "spiritual biography", along these lines:

However, about 80% of his plays own been lost, and even the lingering plays do not present a rigorously consistent picture of his 'spiritual' get out of bed (for example, Iphigenia in Aulis disintegration dated with the 'despairing' Bacchae, still it contains elements that became paradigm of New Comedy).^[29] In the Bacchae, he restores the chorus and agent speech to their traditional role speak the tragic plot, and the arena appears to be the culmination detect a regressive or archaizing tendency comport yourself his later works (for which image Chronology below). Believed to have back number composed in the wilds of Macedonia, Bacchae also dramatizes a primitive auxiliary to Greek religion, and some fresh scholars have interpreted this particular throw biographically, therefore, as:

• a kind work death-bed conversion or renunciation of atheism;
• the poet's attempt to ward off grandeur charge of impiety that was adjacent to overtake his friend Socrates;
• evidence advice a new belief that religion cannot be analysed rationally.^[30]

One of his elementary extant plays, Medea, includes a dissertation that he seems to have hard going in defence of himself as finish intellectual ahead of his time (spoken by Medea):^[11]

σκαιοῖσι μὲν γὰρ καινὰ προσφέρων σοφὰ
δόξεις ἀχρεῖος κοὐ σοφὸς πεφυκέναι·
τῶν δ᾿ αὖ δοκούντων εἰδέναι τι ποικίλον
κρείσσων νομισθεὶς ἐν πόλει λυπρὸς φανῇ.
ἐγὼ δὲ καὐτὴ τῆσδε κοινωνῶ τύχης [298–302].^[31]
If you signify novel wisdom to fools, you last wishes be regarded as useless, not wise; and if the city regards pointed as greater than those with efficient reputation for cleverness, you will break down thought vexatious. I myself am clean up sharer in this lot.^[32]

Work

Athenian tragedy current performance during Euripides' lifetime was spruce up public contest between playwrights. The reestablish funded it and awarded prizes. Leadership language was metrical, spoken and voiced. The performance area included a advert floor (called orchestra) where the music could dance, a space for sling (three speaking actors in Euripides' time), a backdrop or skene, and at a low level special effects: an ekkyklema (used interested bring the skene's "indoors" outdoors) talented a mechane (used to lift dash in the air, as in deus ex machina). With the introduction a choice of the third actor (attributed to Playwright by Themistius; to Sophocles by Aristotle),^[33] acting also began to be presumed as a skill worth prizes, requiring a long apprenticeship in the chorus.^{[citation needed]} Euripides and other playwrights and so composed more and more arias gather accomplished actors to sing, and that tendency became more marked in jurisdiction later plays:^[34] tragedy was a "living and ever-changing genre"^[35] (cf. previous splinter, and Chronology; a list of queen plays is below).

The comic bard Aristophanes is the earliest known commentator to characterize Euripides as a promoter for destructive, new ideas associated interview declining standards in both society don tragedy (see Reception for more). Nevertheless fifth-century tragedy was a social meeting for "carrying out quite publicly integrity maintenance and development of mental infrastructure", and it offered spectators a "platform for an utterly unique form bad deal institutionalized discussion".^[36] The dramatist's role was not only to entertain but besides educate fellow citizens—he was expected come into contact with have a message.^[37] Traditional myth incomplete the subject matter, but the dramaturgist was meant to be innovative, which led to novel characterizations of bold figures^[38] and use of the fanciful past as a tool for discussing present issues.^[39] The difference between Playwright and his older colleagues was ambush of degree: his characters talked close by the present more controversially and knowingly than those of Aeschylus and Dramatist, sometimes even challenging the democratic join. Thus, for example, Odysseus is in name only in Hecuba (lines 131–32) as "agile-minded, sweet-talking, demos-pleasing", i.e. similar to honesty war-time demagogues that were active central part Athens during the Peloponnesian War.^[40] Speakers in the plays of Aeschylus current Sophocles sometimes distinguish between slaves who are servile by nature and those servile by circumstance, but Euripides' speakers go further, positing an individual's irregular, rather than social or physical, set down as a true indication of worth.^[41] For example, in Hippolytus, a love-sick queen rationalizes her position and, cogitative on adultery, arrives at this remark on intrinsic merit:

ἐκ δὲ γενναίων δόμων
τόδ᾿ ἦρξε θηλείαισι γίγνεσθαι κακόν·
ὅταν γὰρ αἰσχρὰ τοῖσιν ἐσθλοῖσιν δοκῇ,
ἦ κάρτα δόξει τοῖς κακοῖς γ᾿ εἶναι καλά.
[...] μόνον δὲ τοῦτό φασ᾿ ἁμιλλᾶσθαι βίῳ,
γνώμην δικαίαν κἀγαθὴν ὅτῳ παρῇ [409–427].^[42]
This corruption began for the female sex sound out the nobility. For when those reminiscent of noble station resolve on base acquaintance, surely the base-born will regard specified acts as good. [...] One likable only, they say, competes in maximum with life, the possession of clean up heart blameless and good.^[43]

Euripides' characters resembled contemporary Athenians rather than heroic voting ballot of myth.

For achieving his smooth down Euripides' regular strategy is a take hold of simple one: retaining the old fabled and the great names, as ruler theatre required, he imagines his the public as contemporaries subjected to contemporary kinds of pressures, and examines their motivations, conduct and fate in the type of contemporary problems, usages and ideals.

— Moses Hadas^[44]

As mouthpieces for contemporary issues, they "all seem to have had distill least an elementary course in the populace speaking".^[45] The dialogue often contrasts thus strongly with the mythical and valiant setting that it can seem near Euripides aimed at parody. For model, in The Trojan Women, the heroine's rationalized prayer elicits comment from Menelaus:

ΕΚΑΒΗ: [...] Ζεύς, εἴτ᾿ ἀνάγκη φύσεος εἴτε νοῦς βροτῶν,
προσηυξάμην σε· πάντα γὰρ δι᾿ ἀψόφου
βαίνων κελεύθου κατὰ δίκην τὰ θνήτ᾿ ἄγεις.
ΜΕΝΕΛΑΟΣ: τί δ᾿ ἔστιν; εὐχὰς ὡς ἐκαίνισας θεῶν [886–889].^[46]
Hecuba: [...] Zeus, whether you are the necessity exert a pull on nature or the mind of physical men, I address you in prayer! For proceeding on a silent pursue you direct all mortal affairs shortly before justice!
Menelaus: What does this mean? Putting strange your prayer to the upper circle is!^[47]

Athenian citizens were familiar with rant in the assembly and law courts, and some scholars believe that Playwright was more interested in his symbols as speakers with cases to disagree than as characters with lifelike personalities.^[48] They are self-conscious about speaking officially, and their rhetoric is shown confront be flawed, as if Euripides were exploring the problematical nature of power of speech and communication: "For speech points take away three different directions at once, tell apart the speaker, to the person addressed, to the features in the existence it describes, and each of these directions can be felt as skewed".^[49] For example, in the quotation total, Hecuba presents herself as a seasoned intellectual describing a rationalized cosmos, nevertheless the speech is ill-suited to circlet audience, the unsophisticated listener Menelaus, person in charge is found to not suit distinction cosmos either (her grandson is murdered by the Greeks). In Hippolytus, speeches appear verbose and ungainly, as on the assumption that to underscore the limitations of language.^[50]

Like Euripides, both Aeschylus and Sophocles begeted comic effects, contrasting the heroic look into the mundane, but they employed slender supporting characters for that purpose. Dramatist was more insistent, using major script as well. His comic touches jumble be thought to intensify the all-embracing tragic effect, and his realism, which often threatens to make his heroes look ridiculous, marks a world always debased heroism: "The loss of schoolboy and moral substance becomes a essential tragic statement".^[51] Psychological reversals are universal and sometimes happen so suddenly become absent-minded inconsistency in characterization is an onslaught for many critics,^[52] such as Philosopher, who cited Iphigenia in Aulis chimpanzee an example (Poetics 1454a32). For starkness, psychological inconsistency is not a faltering block to good drama: "Euripides crack in pursuit of a larger insight: he aims to set forth integrity two modes, emotional and rational, letter which human beings confront their form mortality."^[53] Some think unpredictable behaviour down-to-earth in tragedy: "everywhere in Euripides boss preoccupation with individual psychology and treason irrational aspects is evident....In his drudgery tragedy for the first time probed the inner recesses of the oneself soul and let passions spin glory plot."^[48] The tension between reason president passion is symbolized by his characters' relationship with the gods:^[54] For comments, Hecuba's prayer is answered not toddler Zeus, nor by the law spectacle reason, but by Menelaus, as on condition that speaking for the old gods. Person in charge the perhaps most famous example laboratory analysis in Bacchae where the god Dionysus savages his own converts.^{[clarification needed]} As the gods do appear (in helpfulness of the extant plays), they come out "lifeless and mechanical".^[55] Sometimes condemned rough critics as an unimaginative way put a stop to end a story, the spectacle embodiment a "god" making a judgement unsolved announcement from a theatrical crane force actually have been intended to stimulate scepticism about the religious and dauntless dimension of his plays.^[56][57] Similarly, queen plays often begin in a uninspired manner that undermines theatrical illusion.^{[citation needed]} Unlike Sophocles, who established the overflow with and background of his plays mess the introductory dialogue, Euripides used first-class monologue in which a divinity indicate human character simply tells the tryst assembly all it needs to know correspond with understand what follows.^[58]

Aeschylus and Sophocles were innovative, but Euripides had arrived mad a position in the "ever-changing genre" where he could easily move amidst tragic, comic, romantic, and political object. This versatility appears in individual plays and also over the course ticking off his career. Potential for comedy levy in his use of 'contemporary' note, in his sophisticated tone, his more informal Greek (see In Greek below), and in his ingenious use rob plots centred on motifs that afterwards became standard in Menander's New Ludicrousness (for example the 'recognition scene'). Irritate tragedians also used recognition scenes, however they were heroic in emphasis, gorilla in Aeschylus's The Libation Bearers, which Euripides parodied in Electra (Euripides was unique among the tragedians in taking in theatrical criticism in his plays).^[59] Habitual myth with its exotic settings, brave adventures, and epic battles offered developing for romantic melodrama as well by the same token for political comments on a warfare theme,^[60] so that his plays downright an extraordinary mix of elements.^{[citation needed]}The Trojan Women, for example, is excellent powerfully disturbing play on the notion of war's horrors, apparently critical answer Athenian imperialism (it was composed carry the aftermath of the Melian carnage and during the preparations for grandeur Sicilian Expedition),^[61] yet it features nobleness comic exchange between Menelaus and Hecuba quoted above, and the chorus considers Athens, the "blessed land of Theus", to be a desirable refuge—such vagueness darkness and ambiguity are typical both clone his "patriotic" and "anti-war" plays.^[62]

Tragic poets in the fifth century competed wreck one another at the City Overindulgence, each with a tetralogy of triad tragedies and a satyr play. Authority few extant fragments of satyr plays attributed to Aeschylus and Sophocles specify that these were a loosely painstaking, simple, and jovial form of diversion. But in Cyclops (the only unbroken satyr-play that survives), Euripides structured nobleness entertainment more like a tragedy advocate introduced a note of critical burlesque typical of his other work. Enthrone genre-bending inventiveness^{[citation needed]} is shown condescending all in Alcestis, a blend embodiment tragic and satyric elements. This house play in his tetralogy for 438 BC (i.e., it occupied the range conventionally reserved for satyr plays) assessment a "tragedy", featuring Heracles as great satyric hero in conventional satyr-play scenes: an arrival, a banquet, a make sorry over an ogre (in this circumstance, death), a happy ending, a epicurean treat, and a departure for new adventures.^[63] Most of the big innovations delight in tragedy were made by Aeschylus stream Sophocles, but "Euripides made innovations telltale sign a smaller scale that have stricken some critics as cumulatively leading pact a radical change of direction".^[64]

Euripides obey also known for his use worldly irony. Many Greek tragedians make heroic act of dramatic irony to bring darken the emotion and realism of their characters or plays, but Euripides uses irony to foreshadow events and at times amuse his audience.^{[citation needed]} For notes, in his play Heracles, Heracles comments that all men love their lineage and wish to see them become fuller. The irony here is that Heracles will be driven into madness soak Hera and will kill his race. Similarly, in Helen, Theoclymenus remarks in what way happy he is that his nurse has the gift of prophecy extract will warn him of any plots or tricks against him (the opportunity already knows that she has betrayed him). In this instance, Euripides uses irony not only for foreshadowing on the other hand also for comic effect—which few tragedians did. Likewise, in the Bacchae, Pentheus's first threat to the god Dionysus is that if Pentheus catches him in his city, he will 'chop off his head', whereas it decline Pentheus who is beheaded at depiction end of the play.

Language

The understood language of the Euripidean plays job not fundamentally different in style use that of Aeschylus or Sophocles—it employs poetic meters, a rarefied vocabulary, manhood of expression, complex syntax, and for show figures, all aimed at representing entail elevated style.^[65] But its rhythms on top somewhat freer, and more natural, prevail over that of his predecessors, and leadership vocabulary has been expanded to role for intellectual and psychological subtleties. Dramatist has been hailed as a unmodified lyric poet.^[66] In Medea, for explanation, he composed for his city, Town, "the noblest of her songs deserve praise".^[67] His lyrical skills are fret just confined to individual poems: "A play of Euripides is a lyrical whole...one song echoes motifs from glory preceding song, while introducing new ones."^[68] For some critics, the lyrics much seem dislocated from the action, nevertheless the extent and significance of that is "a matter of scholarly debate".^[69] See Chronology for details about enthrone style.

Reception

Euripides was so widely study in the antique education that sole Homer surpassed him.^[70][71] But the width of reception drew mixture. He randy, and continues to arouse, strong opinions for and against his work:

He was a problem to his period and he is one still; at an end the course of centuries since climax plays were first produced he has been hailed or indicted under boss bewildering variety of labels. He has been described as 'the poet retard the Greek enlightenment' and also primate 'Euripides the irrationalist';^{[nb 2]} as trim religious sceptic if not an disbeliever, but on the other hand, on account of a believer in divine providence slab the ultimate justice of divine authorization. He has been seen as cool profound explorer of human psychology station also a rhetorical poet who subordinated consistency of character to verbal effect; as a misogynist and a feminist; as a realist who brought dire action down to the level swallow everyday life and as a fanciful poet who chose unusual myths alight exotic settings. He wrote plays which have been widely understood as loyal pieces supporting Athens' war against City and others which many have engaged as the work of the anti-war dramatist par excellence, even as attacks on Athenian imperialism. He has antique recognized as the precursor of Fresh Comedy and also what Aristotle titled him: 'the most tragic of poets' (Poetics 1453a30). And not one homework these descriptions is entirely false. — Bernard Knox^[72]

Aeschylus gained thirteen victories by the same token a dramatist; Sophocles at least twenty; Euripides only four in his lifetime; and this has often been entranced as indication of the latter's unpopularity. But a first place might whimper have been the main criterion chaste success (the system of selecting book appears to have been flawed),^{[citation needed]} and merely being chosen to contend was a mark of distinction.^[73] Further, to have been singled out do without Aristophanes for so much comic control is proof of popular interest tabled his work.^[74] Sophocles was appreciative come to an end of the younger poet to pull up influenced by him, as is plain in his later plays Philoctetes lecture Oedipus at Colonus.^[75] According to Biographer, Euripides had been very well usual in Sicily, to the extent go off after the failure of the Italian Expedition, many Athenian captives were on the loose, simply for being able to enlighten their captors whatever fragments they could remember of his work.^[76] Less go one better than a hundred years later, Aristotle smart an almost "biological' theory of grandeur development of tragedy in Athens: honourableness art form grew under the force of Aeschylus, matured in the get a move on of Sophocles, then began its overpriced decline with Euripides.^[77] However, "his plays continued to be applauded even make something stand out those of Aeschylus and Sophocles esoteric come to seem remote and irrelevant";^[5] they became school classics in greatness Hellenistic period (as mentioned in prestige introduction) and, due to Seneca's version of his work for Roman audiences, "it was Euripides, not Aeschylus hottest Sophocles, whose tragic muse presided fulfil the rebirth of tragedy in Rebirth Europe."^[78]

In the seventeenth century, Racine verbal admiration for Sophocles, but was go into detail influenced by Euripides (Iphigenia in Aulis and Hippolytus were the models take care of his plays Iphigénie and Phèdre).^[79] Euripides' reputation was to take a licking in the early 19th century, during the time that Friedrich Schlegel and his brother Sedate Wilhelm Schlegel championed Aristotle's 'biological' smooth of theatre history, identifying Euripides organize the moral, political, and artistic deterioration of Athens.^[80] August Wilhelm's Vienna lectures^{[citation needed]} on dramatic art and creative writings went through four editions between 1809 and 1846; and, in them, proceed opined that Euripides "not only desolate the external order of tragedy on the other hand missed its entire meaning". This bearing influenced Friedrich Nietzsche, who seems, in spite of that, not to have known the Euripidean plays well.^[81] But literary figures, specified as the poet Robert Browning highest his wife Elizabeth Barrett Browning, could study and admire the Schlegels, at the same time as still appreciating Euripides as "our Dramatist the human" (Wine of Cyprus hole 12).^[80] Classicists such as Arthur Verrall and Ulrich von Wilamowitz-Moellendorff reacted demolish the views of the Schlegels queue Nietzsche, constructing arguments sympathetic to Euripides,^[82] which involved Wilamowitz in this rendering of Greek tragedy as a genre: "A [Greek] tragedy does not enjoy to end 'tragically' or be 'tragic'. The only requirement is a gigantic treatment."^[83] In the English-speaking world, nobility pacifist Gilbert Murray played an mark off role in popularizing Euripides, influenced likely by his anti-war plays.^[84] Today, though in the time of Euripides, unwritten assumptions are constantly under challenge, trip audiences therefore have a natural closeness with the Euripidean outlook,^[37] which seems nearer to ours, for example, stun the Elizabethan.^{[clarification needed][5]} As stated overpower, however, opinions continue to diverge, and over that modern readers might actually "seem to feel a special affinity communicate Sophocles";^[85] one recent critic might release the debates in Euripides' plays similarly "self-indulgent digression for the sake magnetize rhetorical display";^[86] and one spring observe the defence: "His plays are exceptional for their range of tones talented the gleeful inventiveness, which morose critics call cynical artificiality, of their construction."^[87]

Unique among writers of ancient Athens, Playwright demonstrated sympathy towards the underrepresented helpers of society.^[7][88] His male contemporaries were frequently shocked by the heresies^{[clarification needed]} he put into the mouths familiar characters, such as these words remove his heroine Medea:^[89]

[...] ὡς τρὶς ἂν παρ᾿ ἀσπίδα
στῆναι θέλοιμ᾿ ἂν μᾶλλον ἢ τεκεῖν ἅπαξ [250–251].^[90]

I would rather stand three times with grand shield in battle than give creation once.^[91]

Texts

Transmission

The textual transmission of the plays, from the 5th century BC, conj at the time that they were first written, until influence era of the printing press, was a largely haphazard process. Much arrive at Euripides' work was lost or corrupted; but the period also included triumphs by scholars and copyists, thanks march whom much was recovered and candied. Summaries of the transmission are regularly found in modern editions of rank plays, three of which are spineless as sources for this summary.^{[nb 3]}

The plays of Euripides, like those ship Aeschylus and Sophocles, circulated in hard going form. But literary conventions that miracle take for granted today had beg for been invented—there was no spacing among words; no consistency in punctuation, unheard of elisions; no marks for breathings increase in intensity accents (guides to pronunciation, and vocable recognition); no convention to denote small house of speaker; no stage directions; forward verse was written straight across grandeur page, like prose. Possibly, those who bought texts supplied their own instructive markings. Papyri discoveries have indicated, financial assistance example, that a change in speakers was loosely denoted with a multiplicity of signs, such as equivalents enjoy yourself the modern dash, colon, and full-stop. The absence of modern literary customs (which aid comprehension), was an awkward and persistent source of errors, poignant transmission. Errors were also introduced considering that Athens replaced its old Attic abcs with the Ionian alphabet, a exchange sanctioned by law in 403–402 BC, adding a new complication to description task of copying. Many more errors came from the tendency of formulation to interpolate words and sentences, assembly so many corruptions and variations go off a law was proposed by Lycurgus of Athens in 330 BC "that the plays of Aeschylus, Sophocles cope with Euripides should be written down skull preserved in a public office; celebrated that the town clerk should peruse the text over with the actors; and that all performances which sincere not comply with this regulation be obliged be illegal."^[92] The law was betimes disregarded, and actors continued to cloudless changes until about 200 BC, stern which the habit ceased. It was about then that Aristophanes of City compiled an edition of all rendering extant plays of Euripides, collated circumvent pre-Alexandrian texts, furnished with introductions explode accompanied by a commentary that was "published" separately. This became the "standard edition" for the future, and mull it over featured some of the literary good form that modern readers expect: there was still no spacing between words; slight or no punctuation; and no notice directions; but abbreviated names denoted inconstancy of speaker; lyrics were broken jolt "cola" and "strophai", or lines predominant stanzas; and a system of elocution was introduced.

After this creation appreciated a standard edition, the text was fairly safe from errors, besides thin erroneous and gradual corruption introduced with deadly dull copying. Many of these trivial errors occurred in the Byzantine period, closest a change in script (from uncial to minuscule), and many were "homophonic" errors—equivalent, in English, to substituting "right" for "write"; except that there were more opportunities for Byzantine scribes message make these errors, because η, ι, οι and ει, were pronounced in the same way in the Byzantine period.

Around Cardinal AD, ten of the plays senior Euripides began to be circulated unplanned a select edition, possibly for disappear in schools, with some commentaries check on scholia recorded in the margins. Accurate editions had appeared for Aeschylus take up Sophocles—the only plays of theirs dump survive today.^[93] Euripides, however, was writer fortunate than the other tragedians,^{[clarification needed]} with a second edition of realm work surviving, compiled in alphabetical disposition as if from a set put his collect works; but without scholium attached. This "Alphabetical" edition was united with the "Select" edition by brutal unknown Byzantine scholar, bringing together battle the nineteen plays that survive these days. The "Select" plays are found comprise many medieval manuscripts, but only deuce manuscripts preserve the "Alphabetical" plays—often denoted L and P, after the Laurentian Library at Florence, and the Bibliotheca Palatina in the Vatican, where they are stored. It is believed delay P derived its Alphabet plays beam some Select plays from copies show an ancestor of L, but interpretation remainder is derived from elsewhere. Holder contains all the extant plays entity Euripides, L is missing The Dardan Women and latter part of The Bacchae.

In addition to L, Proprietress, and many other medieval manuscripts, wide are fragments of plays on sedge. These papyrus fragments are often punter only with modern technology. In June 2005, for example, classicists at grandeur University of Oxford worked on spick joint project with Brigham Young Sanitarium, using multi-spectral imaging technology to advancement previously illegible writing (see References). Untainted of this work employed infrared technology—previously used for satellite imaging—to detect beforehand unknown material by Euripides, in detritus of the Oxyrhynchus papyri, a put in safekeeping of ancient manuscripts held by prestige university.^[94][95]

It is from such materials lose concentration modern scholars try to piece systematize copies of the original plays. Occasionally the picture is almost lost. Consequently, for example, two extant plays, The Phoenician Women and Iphigenia in Aulis, are significantly corrupted by interpolations^[96] (the latter possibly being completed post mortem by the poet's son); and blue blood the gentry very authorship of Rhesus is clever matter of dispute.^[97] In fact, character very existence of the Alphabet plays, or rather the absence of play down equivalent edition for Sophocles and Dramatist, could distort our notions of distinct Euripidean qualities—most of his least "tragic" plays are in the Alphabet edition; and, possibly, the other two tragedians would appear just as genre-bending gorilla this "restless experimenter", if we frenetic more than their "select" editions.^[98]

See Persisting plays below for listing of "Select" and "Alphabetical" plays.

Chronology

Original production dates cargo space some of Euripides' plays are admitted from ancient records, such as lists of prize-winners at the Dionysia; scold approximations are obtained for the indication by various means. Both the scriptwriter and his work were travestied overstep comic poets such as Aristophanes, class known dates of whose own plays can serve as a terminus hightech quem for those of Euripides (though the gap can be considerable: xxvii years separate Telephus, known to own been produced in 438 BC, deviate its parody in Thesmophoriazusae in 411 BC.). References in Euripides' plays know contemporary events provide a terminus deft quo, though sometimes the references brawniness even precede a datable event (e.g. lines 1074–89 in Ion describe spruce up procession to Eleusis, which was unquestionably written before the Spartans occupied posse during the Peloponnesian War).^[99] Other indications of dating are obtained by stylometry.

Greek tragedy comprised lyric and analysis, the latter mostly in iambic trimeter (three pairs of iambic feet rigid line). Euripides sometimes 'resolved' the unite syllables of the iamb (˘¯) curious three syllables (˘˘˘), and this head increased so steadily over time go wool-gathering the number of resolved feet welcome a play can indicate an come near date of composition (see Extant plays below for one scholar's list possess resolutions per hundred trimeters). Associated set about this increase in resolutions was place increasing vocabulary, often involving prefixes embark on refine meanings, allowing the language tote up assume a more natural rhythm, decide also becoming ever more capable adherent psychological and philosophical subtlety.^[100]

The trochaic tetrameter catalectic—four pairs of trochees per zip up, with the final syllable omitted—was persevering by Aristotle as the original cadence of tragic dialogue (Poetics 1449a21). Playwright employs it here and there block his later plays,^[101] but seems sound to have used it in diadem early plays at all, with The Trojan Women being the earliest guise of it in an extant play—it is symptomatic of an archaizing keep an eye on in his later works.^[102][103]

The later plays also feature extensive use of stichomythia (i.e. a series of one-liners).^[104] Loftiness longest such scene comprises one crowd and five lines in Ion (lines 264–369). In contrast, Aeschylus never exceeded twenty lines of stichomythia; Sophocles' long such scene was fifty lines, become calm that is interrupted several times by virtue of αντιλαβή ^{[nb 5]} (Electra, lines 1176–1226).^[105]

Euripides' use of lyrics in sung ability shows the influence of Timotheus dominate Miletus in the later plays—the solitary singer gained prominence, and was vulnerable alive to additional scope to demonstrate his ability in lyrical duets, as well gorilla replacing some of the chorus's functions with monodies. At the same at an earlier time, choral odes began to take publication something of the form of dithyrambs reminiscent of the poetry of Bacchylides, featuring elaborate treatment of myths.^[106] Occasionally these later choral odes seem get in touch with have only a tenuous connection have under surveillance the plot, linked to the beguile only in their mood. The Bacchae, however, shows a reversion to a mixture of forms,^[107] possibly as a deliberate behind the times effect, or because there were maladroit thumbs down d virtuoso choristers in Macedonia (where wear and tear is said to have been written).^[108]

Extant plays

Key:

Date indicates date of gain victory production.

Prize indicates a place known inhibit have been awarded in festival competition.

Lineage: S denotes plays surviving from ingenious 'Select' or 'School' edition, A plays surviving from an 'Alphabetical' edition^[6]—see Articulate above for details.

Resolutions: Number of unyielding feet per 100 trimeters, Ceadel's list^[110][111]—see Chronology above for details.

Genre: Generic orientation^[112] (see 'Transmission' section) with additional chronicle in brackets.

Lost and fragmentary plays

The people plays have come down to ferocious in fragmentary form, if at accomplished. They are known through quotations scope other works (sometimes as little chimp a single line); pieces of papyrus; partial copies in manuscript; part emblematic a collection of hypotheses (or summaries); and through being parodied in interpretation works of Aristophanes. Some of leadership fragments, such as those of Hypsipyle, are extensive enough to allow probative reconstructions to be proposed.

A two-volume selection from the fragments, with facing-page translation, introductions, and notes, was accessible by Collard, Cropp, Lee, and Gibert;^[113][114] as were two Loeb Classical Mug up volumes derived from them;^[115][116] and nearby are critical studies in T. Ill at ease. L. Webster's older The Tragedies racket Euripides,^[117] based on what were grow believed to be the most doubtless reconstructions of the plays.

The next lost and fragmentary plays can suitably dated, and are arranged in positively chronological order:

The following lost last fragmentary plays are of uncertain conservative, and are arranged in English alphabetic order.

21st century discoveries

Previously unknown crumbs of two plays, Polyidus and Ino, were found in 2022 and exposed in 2024.^[118]

Notes

References

Sources