Euripides

Euripides (480-406 B.C.) very popular in later Greek times, little appreciated during his life sometimes known as "the father of melodrama"

Characteristics of Euripides' plays:


 * dealt with subjects usually considered unsuited to the stage which questioned traditional values (Medea loving her stepson, Medea murdering her children)
 * dramatic method often unclear -not always clearly causally related episodes, with many reversals, deus ex machina endings
 * many practices were to become popular: using minor myths or severely altered major ones
 * less poetic language, realistic characterizations and dialog

Tragedy was abandoned in favor of melodramatic treatment.

Theme emphasized: sometimes chance rules world, people are more concerned with morals than gods are.

http://novaonline.nvcc.edu/eli/spd130et/ancientgreek.htm#Com

> > (Richard Aldington, transl.) > > (E.P. Coleridge, transl.) > > (E.P. Coleridge, transl.) > > (E.P. Coleridge, transl.) > > (E.P. Coleridge, transl.) > > (E.P. Coleridge, transl.) > > (E.P. Coleridge, transl.) > > (E.P. Coleridge, transl.) > > (E.P. Coleridge, transl.) [|Ads] Start A Mentoring Program chronus.com/Mentoring-Software Proven Mentoring Software Makes Starting And Running a Program Easy Printable Template www.myscrapnook.com Create Any Templates - Print or Share w/ Friends Free w/ Toolbar! Free War Record Search genealogy.com/Records+War 1) Simply enter their name. 2) View their war record online! > > (Robert Potter, transl.) > > (Robert Potter, transl.) > > (E.P. Coleridge, transl.) > > (E.P. Coleridge, transl.) > > (E.P. Coleridge, transl.) > > (E.P. Coleridge, transl.)
 * [|e-Notes biography] **
 * [|e-Notes summary The Cyclops] **
 * [|Euripides] **
 * [|Euripides] **
 * [|Chapter 7.3: Classical Greek Tragedy (Euripides)] **
 * //Alcestis// - 438 B.C.
 * //Andromache// - 428-24 B.C.
 * //The Bacchantes// - ca. 410 B.C.
 * //The Cyclops// - ca. 408 B.C.
 * //Electra// - 420-410 B.C.
 * //Hecuba// - 424 B.C.
 * //Helen// - 412 B.C.
 * //The Heracleidae// - ca. 429 B.C.
 * //Heracles// - 421-416 B.C.
 * //Hippolytus// - 428 B.C.
 * Theatre Tickets
 * Ancient Greece
 * Roman History
 * Comedy Plays
 * Drama Masks
 * //Ion// - 414-412 B.C.
 * //Iphigenia At Aulis// - 410 B.C.
 * //Iphigenia in Tauris// - 414-412 B.C.
 * //Medea// - 431 B.C.
 * //Orestes// - 408 B.C.
 * //The Phoenissae// - 411-409 B.C.
 * //Rhesus// - 450 B.C.
 * //The Suppliants// - 422 B.C.
 * //The Trojan Women// - 415 B.C.


 * [|The Cyclops] - Complete text of the play. **
 * [|The Cyclops] - An anlysis of the play by Euripides. **


 * [|The Cyclops] **

This ludicrous play was performed at the annual Athenian dramatic festival (the City Dionysia), after a full day of tragedy.
 * [|The Cyclops] **
 * [|Cyclops - Euripides] **
 * [|Cyclops] **
 * 1) What purpose do you think it served? What do you think an audience was supposed to take away from it?
 * 2) How does the chorus of satyrs' worship of Dionysus differ in this play from the chorus of bacchants' worship of the god in Euripides' Bacchants? How does the character of Dionysus differ in the two plays?
 * 3) This is a particularly good play for exploring the dynamics of alterity, since Odysseus is defined against both the Cyclops and the satyrs. What qualities of the Greek man come across through this double contrast? Are there any ways in which they are superior to him?
 * 4) This play is not a tragedy but a satyr play. How does it differ from the tragedies we have read?
 * 5) How does Euripides' Odysseus differ from the Odysseus of the Odyssey? What about Euripides' Cyclops? Is he the same or different?
 * 6) What does the presence of the satyrs do to the story?
 * 7) What direct echoes of Odyssey 9 are here? What elements of the story are conspicuously different?What do you make of the arguments of Odysseus as to why he should not be eaten, and those of the Cyclops regarding why he should be eaten?
 * 8) Did you feel at all sorry for the Cyclops? Why or why not?

Terms and Names:

Euripides' Bacchants, cont.

a play about theatrical experience ("metatheatrical")

what is illusion (mimêsis: imitation) and what is reality? theater makes you lose yourself: Pentheus becomes a bacchant when he dresses like one the play lets its audience experience Dionysiac worship, in all its [|terror] and ecstasy

City Dionysia

religious festival and civic ritual tragedy -- a complex and ambiguous lesson in Athenian values [| satyr play] -- a lesson in ???

Euripides' Cyclops (our only whole remaining [|satyr play]!)

based on Homer's Odyssey cast: Cyclops (Polyphemus) [|satyrs] (and their leader Silenus): [|more satyrs], and [|more], and [|more] Odysseus

Defining mankind between the extremes:

food wine -- [|symposium] (more non-pornographic images of symposia [|here] and [|here]) religion social organization

If you are interested in seeing more images of Athens and its theater, check out this awesome site, with 3-D virtual tours of the Acropolis: []

There is also an excellent site dedicated to ancient theater at [|http://homepage.usask.ca/~jrp638/skenotheke.html] with lots of further links.

Finally, check out this clip of an updated version of Bacchants by the National Theatre of Scotland: @http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LnHm3IPmpuU