Reference
- EuripidesGreek tragic dramatist, ca. 485-406 bce. According to Aristotle, Sophocles said that he drew men as they ought to be, but Euripides drew them as they were. Euripides has always been a more controversial dramatist than Sophocles or Aeschylus. His plays take a more skeptical view of human, and specifically male, pretensions, at times bordering on black farce; the cosmos they portray is more savagely unpredictable; their aesthetic principles are at loggerheads with Aristotle's. No wonder that to later ages he has always seemed more "modern" than his rivals, though not necessarily more estimable. Nietzsche was not alone in deploring (with the exception of the Bacchae) the degenerate worldview that Euripides represented...
- EuripidesAccording to the Library of Congress's online catalogue, between the turn of the 21st century and the moment of this writing, some 49 separate translations into modern languages have been done of plays by Euripides. He exemplifies a writer whose work was perhaps undervalued in his own time, but whose reputation and popularity have been on the rise ever since.
We know little about Euripides’ life, however, that is demonstrably factual. Apparently born at Salamis, his exact birth date is a matter of conjecture. His first tragedies (perhaps including the lost Daughters of Pelias) were performed at Athens at the Great Dionysia in 455 BCE Between that competition and the time of his death, he probably wrote 88 plays, of which 19 or 20 are extant. The authorship of one of them, Rhesus, remains in dispute, and that play has not been included in the Loeb Classical Library's bilingual edition of his complete works. - MedeaEuripides’ tragic masterpiece draws its subject from the ancient story of Jason and the Argonauts. (See below for a critical commentary.) At the behest of his uncle, Pelias, Jason and a crew of Greek heroes and demigods set off in the Argo, the first Greek ship, to steal the Golden Fleece revered and safeguarded in the distant land of Colchis—a land ruled by a king named Aeëtes. Pelias expected Jason to be killed on the voyage...
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Euripides: Medea
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This is the stunning Kennedy Center production of Euripides’s great classic about a woman driven by emotion beyond the brink of rationality. With Zoe Caldwell as Medea and Judith Anderson as the nurse. The English text is by Robinson Jeffers. (87 minutes)
Online Resources
- Euripides: BiographyEuripides was one of the best-known and most influential dramatists in classical Greek culture; of his 90 plays, 19 have survived. His most famous tragedies, which reinvent Greek myths and probe the darker side of human nature, include Medea, The Bacchae, Hippolytus, Alcestis and The Trojan Women...
- Euripides: BritannicaEuripides, (born c. 484 BC, Athens [Greece]—died 406, Macedonia), last of classical Athens’s three great tragic dramatists, following Aeschylus and Sophocles...
- Medea: BritannicaMedea, Greek Mēdeia, tragedy by Euripides, performed in 431 BCE. One of Euripides’ most powerful and best-known plays, Medea is a remarkable study of injustice and ruthless revenge...
Perspectives
The Complete Euripides
Based on the conviction that only translators who write poetry themselves can properly re-create the celebrated and timeless tragedies of Aeschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides, the Greek Tragedy in New Translations series offers new translations that go beyond the literal meaning of the Greek in order to evoke the poetry of the originals.This volume collects Euipides' Alcestis (translated by William Arrowsmith), a subtle drama about Alcestis and her husband Admetos, which is the oldest surviving work by the dramatist; Medea (Michael Collier and Georgia Machemer), a moving vengeance story and an excellent example of the prominence and complexity that Euripides gave to female characters; Helen (Peter Burian), a genre breaking play based on the myth of Helen in Egypt; and Cyclops (Heather McHugh and David Konstan), a highly lyrical drama based on a celebrated episode from the Odyssey. This volume retains the informative introductions and explanatory notes of the original editions and adds a single combined glossary and Greek line numbers.
Euripides: Medea
Euripides' "Medea" is one of the greatest and most influential Greek tragedies. This book outlines the development of the Medea myth before Euripides and explores his uniquely powerful version from various angles. There are chapters on the play's relationship to the gender politics of fifth-century Athens, Medea's status as a barbarian, and the complex moral and emotional impact of her revenge. Particular attention is paid to the tragic effect of Medea's great monologue and the significance of her role as a divine avenger. The book ends by considering the varied and fascinating reception of Euripides' play from antiquity to the present day.
Seeing with Free Eyes
Responding to Plato's challenge to defend the political thought of poetic sources, Marlene K. Sokolon explores Euripides's understanding of justice in nine of his surviving tragedies. Drawing on Greek mythological stories, Euripides examines several competing ideas of justice, from the ancient ethic of helping friends and harming enemies to justice as merit and relativist views of might makes right. Reflecting Dionysus, the paradoxical god of Greek theater, Euripides reveals the human experience of understanding justice to be limited, multifaceted, and contradictory. His approach underscores the value of understanding justice not only as a rational idea or theory, but also as an integral part of the continuous and unfinished dialogue of political community. As the first book devoted to Euripidean justice, Seeing with Free Eyes adds to the growing interest in how citizens in democracies use storytelling genres to think about important political questions, such as "What is justice?"
Euripides' Life and Times: The Trojan Women
- Films on Demand This link opens in a new windowThis video presents a brief description of the life of Euripides and the development of the Greek theater, looking at the play The Trojan Women and explaining how it is an indictment against the horror and futility of war.