Euripides Talks

Actors of Dionysus (aod), formed in 1993 to tour Classical drama in translation and have established themselves as the leading exponents of Greek tragedy in contemporary theatre and education. With many national and international touring productions, two DVDs, a Penguin audio book of "Medea" and a whole series of pre-performance talks issued in their journal "Dionysus", they have brought Greek tragedy to new audiences worldwide. Scholars have been generous in their support for aod, and this selection of talks on five of Euripides' plays, "Bacchae", "Medea", "Hippolytus", "Electra" and "Trojan Women", represents but a fraction of their contribution to aod's success. Less formal than lectures, essays or articles, these talks offer sixth-form students and the general public a more accessible approach to the thoughts of some of our leading academics about this extraordinary playwright who can still capture the imagination of a twenty-first century audience. Contributors of this title include: Chris Carey, Kenneth Dover, Alex Garvie, Jasper Griffin, Richard Janko, Richard Jenkyns, Jenny March, Richard Rutherford, Richard Seaford, and Alan Sommerstein.

Euripides and the Boundaries of the Human presents the first single-volume reading in nearly fifty years of all of Euripides’ surviving plays. Rather than examining one or a handful of dramas in monograph or article form, Mark Ringer insists on the thematic and stylistic parallels that unite a diverse canon of works. Euripides is often referred to as the most modern of the three Ancient Greek tragedians, but in what way can the work of this fifth-century B.C. artist be claimed as modern? The multi-layered presentation of character is new within the context of Athenian Tragedy. The plays also reveal equal concern with the preservation and re-vitalization of tradition, especially with respect to the portrayal of the Olympian gods. Euripidean drama upholds tradition just as vigorously as it posits a new kind of realism in character portrayal in the Ancient Theatre. Euripidean drama fuses what was old with what was new in order to revitalize and perpetuate the art of tragedy. This book will be of interest to professionals and students in the fields of classics, Greek drama in translation or in the original Greek, theater studies, comparative literature, tragedy, and religion.

A COMPANION TO EURIPIDES A COMPANION TO EURIPIDES Euripides has enjoyed a resurgence of interest as a result of many recent important publications, attesting to the poet’s enduring relevance to the modern world. A Companion to Euripides is the product of this contemporary work, with many essays drawing on the latest texts, commentaries, and scholarship on the man and his oeuvre. Divided into seven sections, the companion begins with a general discussion of Euripidean drama. The following sections contain essays on Euripidean biography and the manuscript tradition, and individual essays on each play, organized in chronological order. Chapters offer summaries of important scholarship and methodologies, synopses of individual plays and the myths from which they borrow their plots, and conclude with suggestions for additional reading. The final two sections deal with topics central to Euripidean scholarship, such as religion, myth, and gender, and the reception of Euripides from the 4th century BCE to the modern world. A Companion to Euripides brings together a variety of leading Euripides scholars from a wide range of perspectives. As a result, specific issues and themes emerge across the chapters as central to our understanding of the poet and his meaning for our time. Contributions are original and provocative interpretations of Euripides’ plays, which forge important paths of inquiry for future scholarship.

Euripides' Bacchae is one of the most widely read and performed Greek tragedies. A story of implacable divine vengeance, it skilfully transforms earlier currents of literature and myth, and its formative influence on modern ideas of Greek tragedy and religion is unparalleled. This up-to-date edition offers a detailed literary and cultural analysis. The wide-ranging Introduction discusses such issues as the psychological and anthropological aspects of Dionysiac ritual, the god's ability to blur gender boundaries, his particular connection to dramatic role-playing, and the interaction of belief and practice in Greek religion. The Commentary's notes on language and style are intended to make the play fully accessible to students of Greek at all levels, while the edition as a whole is designed for anyone with an interest in Greek tragedy or cultural history.

Set at the end of the Trojan war, "Euripides' Trojan Women" depicts the women of Troy as they wait to be taken into slavery. While choral songs recall the death-throes of the great city, the scenes between the old queen, Hekabe, and the women of her family explore the consequences of the defeat, from the rape of Cassandra, through the triumphant self-exculpation of Helen, to the pitiful death of the child Astyanax, who is thrown from the walls of his ravaged city. Barbara Goff sets the play in its historical, dramatic and literary contexts, and provides a scene-by-scene analysis which brings out the pace and intellectual vigour of the play. The main themes are fully discussed, and the book also introduces readers to the issues that have divided critics, such as the extent to which the play responds to the historical events of the Peloponnesian War. The final chapter, which deals with the reception of the play, offers new insights into several modern works.

Euripides is rightly lauded as one of the great dramatists of all time. In his lifetime, he wrote over 90 plays and although only 18 have survived they reveal the scope and reach of his genius. Euripides is identified with many theatrical innovations that have influenced drama all the way down to modern times, especially in the representation of traditional, mythical heroes as ordinary people in extraordinary circumstances. As would be expected from a life lived 2,500 years ago, details of it are few and far between. Accounts of his life, written down the ages, do exist but whether much is reliable or surmised is open to debate. Most accounts agree that he was born on Salamis Island around 480 BC, to mother Cleito and father Mnesarchus, a retailer who lived in a village near Athens. Upon the receipt of an oracle saying that his son was fated to win "crowns of victory," Mnesarchus insisted that the boy should train for a career in athletics. However, what is clear is that athletics was not to be the way to win crowns of victory. Euripides had been lucky enough to have been born in the era as the other two masters of Greek Tragedy; Sophocles and schylus. It was in their footsteps that he was destined to follow. His first play was performed some thirteen years after the first of Socrates plays and a mere three years after schylus had written his classic The Oristria. Theatre was becoming a very important part of the Greek culture. The Dionysia, held annually, was the most important festival of theatre and second only to the fore-runner of the Olympic games, the Panathenia, held every four years, in appeal. Euripides first competed in the City Dionysia, in 455 BC, one year after the death of schylus, and, incredibly, it was not until 441 BC that he won first prize. His final competition in Athens was in 408 BC. The Bacchae and Iphigenia in Aulis were performed after his death in 405 BC and first prize was awarded posthumously. Altogether his plays won first prize only five times. Euripides was also a great lyric poet. In Medea, for example, he composed for his city, Athens, "the noblest of her songs of praise." His lyric skills however are not just confined to individual poems: "A play of Euripides is a musical whole....one song echoes motifs from the preceding song, while introducing new ones." Much of his life and his whole career coincided with the struggle between Athens and Sparta for hegemony in Greece but he didn't live to see the final defeat of his city. Euripides fell out of favour with his fellow Athenian citizens and retired to the court of Archelaus, king of Macedon, who treated him with consideration and affection. At his death, in around 406BC, he was mourned by the king, who, refusing the request of the Athenians that his remains be carried back to the Greek city, buried him with much splendor within his own dominions. His tomb was placed at the confluence of two streams, near Arethusa in Macedonia, and a cenotaph was built to his memory on the road from Athens towards the Piraeus.

This book contains translations of three plays:Ajax, Hecuba, and Trojan Women. They are all centered around the mythological theme of the Greek warrior, Odysseus, hero of the Trojan War. All three plays are complete, with notes and introductions, plus an introduction to the volume with background to the story which was one of the most popular themes and one of the most written about Greek hero in Greek literature. Written during a tumultuous age of sophists and demagogues, these three plays (c. 450-425 BCE) bear witness to the gradual degradation of Odysseus’ character. In presenting the unexpected devolution of a renowned mythic figure, the plays examine numerous themes relevant to contemporary American political life: the profound psychological consequences of brought on by the stress of war and why a once proud and noble warrior might commit suicide; and the dehumanizing darkness that descends upon innocent female war-victims when victors use act on false political necessity.

Brill’s Companion to Euripides, as well as presenting a comprehensive and authoritative guide to understanding Euripides and his masterworks, provides scholars and students with compelling fresh perspectives upon a broad range of issues in the field of Euripidean studies.