The Art of Euripides: Dramatic Technique and Social ContextIn this book Professor Mastronarde draws on the seventeen surviving tragedies of Euripides, as well as the fragmentary remains of his lost plays, to explore key topics in the interpretation of the plays. It investigates their relation to the Greek poetic tradition and to the social and political structures of their original setting, aiming both to be attentive to the great variety of the corpus and to identify commonalities across it. In examining such topics as genre, structural strategies, the chorus, the gods, rhetoric, and the portrayal of women and men, this study highlights the ways in which audience responses are manipulated through the use of plot structures and the multiplicity of viewpoints expressed. It argues that the dramas of Euripides, through their dramatic technique, pose a strong challenge to simple formulations of norms, to the reading of consistent human character, and to the quest for certainty and closure. |
Contents
| 1 | |
Chapter 2 Problems of genre | 44 |
variety and unity | 63 |
Chapter 4 The chorus | 88 |
Chapter 5 The gods | 153 |
Chapter 6 Rhetoric and character | 207 |
Chapter 7 Women | 246 |
Chapter 8 Euripidean males and the limits of autonomy | 280 |
Conclusion | 307 |
Bibliography | 313 |
| 334 | |
| 346 | |
Other editions - View all
The Art of Euripides: Dramatic Technique and Social Context Donald J. Mastronarde No preview available - 2010 |
The Art of Euripides: Dramatic Technique and Social Context Donald J. Mastronarde No preview available - 2015 |
Common terms and phrases
Achilles action Admetus Aesch Aeschylus Agamemnon agōn Alcestis Andromache Antigone Aphrodite Apollo Argive argument Aristophanes Aristotle arrives Artemis Athenian Athens audience audience’s Aulis Bacchae characters choral chorus claim Clytemnestra Collard comedy context contrast Creon Creusa critics Cropp cultural death definition deus ex machina different Dionysia Dionysus divine drama effect effort Electra episode Eteocles Euripides example female fifth century figures final find first gender genre goddess gods Greek tragedy Griffith Hecuba Helen Heracleidae Heracles Hermione hero heroic Hipp Hippolytus human sacrifice interpretation Iolaus Iphigenia in Tauris Jason judgment male Mastronarde Medea Menelaus moral motif myth narrative Neoptolemus Odysseus Oedipus off offer oracle Orestes parodos Peleus Pentheus performance Phaedra Philoctetes Phoen Phoenissae play plot poetic poets political Polymestor Polyxena position prologue Pylades reflect rhetorical role satyr-play scene significant song Soph Sophocles specific speech stasima stasimon status structure suffering suppliants Supplices theme Theseus traditional tragic Trojan Troy women Zeus