Euripides

Euripides, Vatican Museum.

Euripides (Greek: Ευριπίδης) (c. 480–406 B.C.E.) was the last of the three great tragedians of classical Athens, the other two being Aeschylus and [[Sophocles]. Euripides is known primarily for having reshaped the formal structure of traditional Attic tragedy; he was the first tragedian to utilize strong female characters and intelligent slaves. In rather sharp contrast with Aeschylus, Euripides satirized many of the major figures of Greek mythology and the cynical view of the Gods suggested in many of his plays might have been viewed in his own times as nearly heretical. His plays seem modern by comparison with those of his contemporaries, focusing on the inner lives and motives of his characters in a way that was unknown to Greek audiences. Where Aeschylus was predmoinantly a moral playwright, and Sophocles primarily concerned with the role of Fate and the Gods, Euripides was perhaps the most human of the three, concerned more often than not with characters much closer to earth than the towering heroes and demigods which had dominated ancient Greek literature prior to his times. Euripides, like his fellow tragedians, is one of the foremost playwrights in all of Western literature, and as a result his contribution to the development of Western drama and literature in general is completely inestimable. He is one of the seminal figures of ancient Greek literature, and one of its most accessible for modern audiences.

Life

Like all writers of his time, Euripides' biography is largely a matter of conjecture and lore. According to legend, Euripides was born in Salamís on September 23, 480 B.C.E.; the day of the Persian War's greatest naval battle. His father's name was either Mnesarchus or Mnesarchides and his mother's name Cleito, [1] and evidence suggests that the family was wealthy and influential, as a result of which Euripides was exposed to the great ideas and thinkers of the day, including Protagoras, Socrates, and Anaxagoras. Anaxagorus, for example, maintained that the sun was not a golden chariot steered across the sky by some elusive god, but rather a fiery mass of earth or stone; it is possible that exposure to such ideas led Euripides to question the religion he grew up with. Certainly it is known that he was raised in a semi-religious household; records show that, as a youth, he served as a cup-bearer in a temple of Apollo.

He was married twice, to Choerile and Melito, though sources disagree as to which woman he married first. [2] [3] He had three sons, and it is rumored that he also had a daughter who was killed early in life by a rabid dog. Some call this rumor a joke made by Aristophanes, a comic writer who often poked fun at Euripides, but many historians believe that the story is accurate.

The record of Euripides' public life, other than his involvement in dramatic competitions, is almost non-existent. The only reliable story of note is one by Aristotle about Euripides being involved in a dispute over a liturgy - a story which offers strong proof to Euripides being a wealthy man. It has been said that he travelled to Syracuse, Sicily, that he engaged in various public or political activities during his lifetime, and that he left Athens at the invitation of king Archelaus I] of Macedon and stayed with him in Macedonia after 408 B.C.E.; there is, however, no historical evidence for any of these claims.

Plays

Euripides first competed in the famous Athenian dramatic festival (the Dionysia) in 455 B.C.E., one year after the death of Aeschylus. He came in third, because he refused to cater to the fancies of the Judges. It was not until 441 B.C.E. that he won first prize, and over the course of his lifetime, Euripides claimed a mere four victories. He also won one posthumous victory.

He was a frequent target of Aristophanes' humor. He appears as a character in The Acharnians, Thesmophoriazusae, and most memorably in The Frogs, where Dionysus travels to Hades to bring Euripides back from the dead. After a competition of poetry, Dionysus opts to bring Aeschylus instead.

Euripides' final competition in Athens was in 408 B.C.E. Although there is a story that he left Athens embittered over his defeats, there is no real evidence to support it. He accepted an invitation by the king of Macedon in 408 or 407 B.C.E., and once there he wrote Archelaus in honour of his host. He is believed to have died there in winter 407/6 B.C.E.; ancient biographers have told many stories about his death, but the simple truth was that it was probably his first exposure to the harsh Macedonia winter which killed him. (Rutherford 1996). The Bacchae was performed after his death in 405 B.C.E. and won first prize.

When compared with Aeschylus, who won thirteen times, and Sophocles, with eighteen victories, Euripides was the least honored, though not necessarily the least popular, of the three — at least in his lifetime. Later in the 4th century B.C.E., the dramas of Euripides became more popular than those of Aeschylus and Sophocles, as is evidenced by the survival (at least in part) of virtually all of his works, while most of the plays of both Aeschylus and Sophocles have been lost for all time. His works influenced Roman drama, and were later idolized by the French classicists such as Racine and Moliere; his influence on drama reaches modern times.

Euripides' greatest works are considered to be Alcestis, Medea, Electra, and The Bacchae.

Works

Tragedies of Euripides

1. Alcestis (438 B.C.E., second prize)
2. Medea (431 B.C.E., third prize)
3. Heracleidae (c. 430 B.C.E.)
4. Hippolytus (428 B.C.E., first prize)
5. Andromache (c. 425 B.C.E.)
6. Hecuba (c. 424 B.C.E.)
7. The Suppliants (c. 423 B.C.E.)
8. Electra (c. 420 B.C.E.)
9. Heracles (c. 416 B.C.E.)
10. Trojan Women (415 B.C.E., second prize)
11. Iphigeneia in Tauris (c. 414 B.C.E.)
12. Ion (c. 414 B.C.E.)
13. Helen (412 B.C.E.)
14. Phoenician Women (c. 410 B.C.E.)
15. Orestes (408 B.C.E.)
16. Bacchae and Iphigeneia at Aulis (405 B.C.E., posthumous, first prize)

Fragmentary tragedies of Euripides

The following plays have come down to us today only in fragmentary form; some consist of only a handful of lines, but with some the fragments are extensive enough to allow tentative reconstruction: see Euripides: Selected Fragmentary Plays (Aris and Phillips 1995) ed. C. Collard, M.J. Cropp and K.H. Lee.

1. Telephus (438 B.C.E.)
2. Cretans (c. 435 B.C.E.)
3. Stheneboea (before 429 B.C.E.)
4. Bellerophon (c. 430 B.C.E.)
5. Cresphontes (ca. 425 B.C.E.)
6. Erechtheus (422 B.C.E.)
7. Phaethon (c. 420 B.C.E.)
8. Wise Melanippe (c. 420 B.C.E.)
9. Alexandros (415 B.C.E.)
10. Palamedes (415 B.C.E.)
11. Sisyphus (415 B.C.E.)
12. Captive Melanippe (412 B.C.E.)
13. Andromeda (c. 410 B.C.E.)
14. Antiope (c. 410 B.C.E.)
15. Archelaus (c. 410 B.C.E.)
16. Hypsipyle (c. 410 B.C.E.)
17. Oedipus (c. 410 B.C.E.)
18. Philoctetes (c. 410 B.C.E.)

Satyr play

1. Cyclops (408)

Spurious plays

1. Rhesus (mid 4th century B.C.E., probably not by Euripides, as maintained today by most scholars)

References

ISBN links support NWE through referral fees

• Croally, N.T. Euripidean Polemic: The Trojan Women and the Function of Tragedy. Cambridge University Press, 1994.
• Ippolito, P. La vita di Euripide. N�poles: Dipartimento di Filologia Classica dell'Universit'a degli Studi di Napoli Federico II, 1999.
• Kovacs, D. Euripidea. Leiden: Brill, 1994.
• Lefkowitz, M.R. The Lives of the Greek Poets. London: Duckworth, 1981.
• Rutherford, Richard. Euripides: Medea and other plays. Penguin, 1996.
• Scullion, S. Euripides and Macedon, or the silence of the Frogs. The Classical Quarterly, Oxford, v. 53, n. 2, p. 389-400, 2003.
• Sommerstein, Alan H. Greek Drama and Dramatists, Routledge, 2002.
• Webster, T.B.L., The Tragedies of Euripides, Methuen, 1967.

Further reading

• Works by Euripides. Project Gutenberg
• Encarta's entry for Euripides
• Euripides-related materials at the Perseus Digital Library
• Useful summaries of Euripides' life, works, and other relevant topics of interest at TheatreHistory.com.
• http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/ancient/eb11-euripides.html
• http://www.ac-strasbourg.fr/pedago/lettres/Victor%20Hugo/Notes/Euripide.htm
• http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/~amahoney/tragedy_dates.html
• http://www.gpc.edu/~shale/humanities/literature/world_literature/euripides.html
• http://www.imagi-nation.com/moonstruck/clsc4.htm
• IMDBs List of movies based on Euripides plays

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