Euripides

Isabelle Torrance

• Éditeur: I.B. Tauris
• Année: 2019
• ISBN:
  9781786725660
• Édition: 1
• Sujet: Literature
• Sous-sujet: Ancient & Classical Drama

Sophocles, Aeschylus and Euripides are often described as the greatest tragedians of the ancient world. Of these three pivotal founders of modern drama, Euripides is characterized as the interloper and the innovator: the man who put tragic verse into the mouths of slaves, women and the socially inferior in order to address vital social issues such as sex, class and gender relations. It is perhaps little wonder that his work should find such resonance in the modern day. In this concise introduction, Isabelle Torrance engages with the thematic, cultural and scholarly difficulties that surround his plays to demonstrate why Euripides remains a figure of perennial relevance. Addressing here issues of social context, performance theory, fifth-century philosophy and religion, textual criticism and reception, the author presents an astute and attractively-written guide to the Euripidean corpus – from the widely read and celebrated Medea to the lesser-known and deeply ambiguous Alcestis.

‌Notes

I. Life and Works

1 On the sources for Euripides’ life, see Lefkowitz (2012) 87–103, esp. 90–1 for discussion of the different birth dates recorded.

2 Scodel (2017) 29, 32–3.

3 See Echeverría (2017) 74–6.

4 Sommerstein (2002) 41.

5 Lefkowitz (2012) 90, Scodel (2017) 30.

6 Roselli (2005).

7 Lefkowitz (2012) 88–90, 92–4, Scodel (2017) 30–1.

8 Sommerstein (2002) 49–50, 164, Scodel (2017) 31. One source claims that Euripides’ son and namesake produced some of his father’s plays. Another claims that it was his nephew. On Euripides’ death in Macedon, see further Scodel (2017) 37–9.

9 On Euripides’ wives and reports of adultery, see Scodel (2017) 31–2; for a clearly formulated rejection of the proposition that Euripides was a misogynist, see March (1990).

10 For further discussion of the anecdotal nature of ancient biographies of Euripides, see Lefkowitz (2012) 87–103.

11 Sommerstein (2002) 7.

12 Allan (2000) 149–60.

13 For more information on the system of sponsorship, called the chorēgia, see Csapo and Slater (1995) 139–57 and Wilson (2000).

14 Csapo and Slater (1995) 141 (sponsor’s prize), 108 (playwright’s award).

15 Parker (2016) 356–8.

16 See Storey and Allan (2005) 93 and 114 on the victories of Aeschylus and Sophocles at the City Dionysia.

17 See Wright (2016a) 97.

18 Sommerstein (2002) 49, Lefkowitz (2012) 92, cf. 97.

19 On the oath of the judges, see Sommerstein and Bayliss (2013) 118–19.

20 For more details on the audience of Greek tragedy, see Goldhill (1997), and on the presence of women at the theatre see...

Table des matières

• Acknowledgements
• I • Life and Works
• II • Spectacular Theatre
• III • Religion and Philosophy
• IV • Rhetoric and Relevance
• V • Literary Sophistication
• VI • Conflicts: Ancient and Modern
• Conclusion
• Notes
• Bibliography