Euripidean Drama : : Myth, Theme and Structure / / Desmond Conacher.

• Superior document: Title is part of eBook package: De Gruyter University of Toronto Press eBook-Package Archive 1933-1999
• VerfasserIn: Conacher, Desmond,
• Place / Publishing House: Toronto : : University of Toronto Press, , [2017]; ©1967
• Year of Publication: 2017
• Language: English
• Series: Heritage
• Physical Description: 1 online resource (372 p.)

It is a commonly held view among historians of Greek literature that with the advent of Euripides the tragic structure, even the tragic outlook of Greek drama suffered a breakdown from which it never recovered. While there is much truth in this opinion, it has tended to put too much emphasis on ";Euripides the destroyer"; rather than ";Euripides the creator."; In this study the author's main purpose is to redress the balance and to discuss the structure and techniques of Euripidean drama in relation to its new and richly varied themes.The consistent dramatic form evolved by Aeschylus and Sophocles had grown out of their conception of tragedy as the resultant of the tension between the individual will and the universal order suggested in myth. For Euripides, who never fully accepted myth as the real basis of tragedy, alternate ways of using the traditional material became necessary, and the playwright continually changed his dramatic structure to suit the particular tragic idea he was seeking to express. Viewed in this way, Euripides' dramatic technique may be seen in positive as well as negative terms—as something other than the breakdown of structural technique and mythological insight under the overwhelming force of his ideas. Professor Conacher offers here a new view of Euripides as the first Greek dramatist properly to understand the world of myth, and so, in a sense, to stand a bit outside it. He shows how Euripides, far from being an impatient or incompetent craftsman, used traditional mth as a basis for inventing new forms in which to cast his perceptions of the sources of human tragedy. All the extant Euripidean drama is examined in this book; the result is an intelligent guide to the plays for all students of dramatic literature, as well as a convincing defence of Euripides the creator.

Table of Contents

Frontmatter -- PREFACE -- CONTENTS -- 1. INTRODUCTION -- PART ONE. MYTHOLOGICAL TRAGEDY -- 2. THE Hippolytus -- 3. THE Bacchae -- 4. THE Heracles -- PART TWO. POLITICAL TRAGEDY -- 5. THE Suppliants -- 6. THE Heracleidae -- PART THREE. WAR AND ITS AFTERMATH -- 7. THE Trojan Women -- 8. THE Hecuba -- 9. THE Andromache -- PART FOUR. REALISTIC TRAGEDY -- 10. THE Medea -- 11. THE Electra -- 12. THE Orestes -- PART FIVE. TRAGEDIE MANQUEE -- 13. THE Phoenissae -- 14. THE Iphigenia at Aulis -- PART SIX. ROMANTIC TRAGEDY -- 15. THE Ion -- 16. THE Helena -- 17. THE Iphigenia among the Taurians -- PART SEVEN. SATYRIC (AND PRO-SATYRIC?) DRAMA -- 18. THE SATYR-PLAY -- 19. THE Alcestis -- 20. EPILOGUE -- BIBLIOGRAPHY -- SELECT LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS