Euripides

In this article, I analyze the role of Heracles' famous body in the representation of madness and its aftermath in Euripides' Heracles. Unlike studies of Trachiniae, interpretations of Heracles have neglected the hero's body in Euripides. This reading examines the eruption of that body midway through the tragedy as a part of Heracles that is daemonic and strange, but also integral to his identity. Central to my reading is the figure of the symptom, through which madness materializes onstage. Symptoms were contested sites of interpretation in the late fifth century, supporting both conventional narratives about human suffering and new stories advanced by contemporary medicine and ethics. In exploring the imaginative possibilities of these new stories, I do not privilege a " secular " over a " divine " reading. Rather I aim to offer a model of interaction between medicine and tragedy that sees the cross-breeding of worldviews as productive of innovative drama.

This paper concentrates on the literary sources of the battle of Delion (424 BCE) and reopens the debate on the relevance of Euripides' Supplices for the narrative of this event. Thucydides is read with a particular focus on the speech of Pagondas (4.92), which can be understood through the current reconstruction of the history of Boiotia in the latter half of the fifth century BCE. Finally, Diodorus (12.69-70) is considered as a useful source for a few pieces of information on the aftermath of the battle that have previously been disregarded.

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This essay investigates the influence of Euripides’ Hecuba on Renaissance ideas about tragedy, from Italy and Spain to France, England, and, especially, the Ragusan Republic (Dubrovnik). Hitherto left out of the standard accounts of Euripides in the Renaissance, Marin Držić’s Hecuba (1559) is shown to be the only vernacular version of Euripides that was performed in Renaissance Europe. Informed by a fresh analysis of the play's manuscript tradition, the essay argues that through its sustained interest in theatrical spectacle and observation the Ragusan Hecuba responds to certain elements in Euripides’ drama that have been obscured by the traditions of modern criticism. An analogous response is identified in Shakespeare’s Hamlet.

"This book investigates one of the most characteristic and prominent features of ancient Greek literature – the scene of debate or agon, in which with varying degrees of formality characters square up to each other and engage in a contest of words – and sets out for the first time to trace its changing representations through Homeric epic, historiography and tragedy. Combining literary dialogic theory with sociological approaches towards structure, it makes the claim that debate is best understood in relation to an institutional framework, in which issues of authority and dissent are variously set out and worked through. Intersecting with key recent scholarship, it shows that the Homeric poems establish, and scrutinise, the assembly as an institution which accommodates dissent, in line with an understanding of epic narrative as foundational; that the historians’ marginal status as writers in an oral culture manifests itself in their representing debate as a challenge to the utility of public institutions; and that tragedy marks the formal institutionalisation of dissent in its adversarial structure with an onus on speaking back, which offers a new way of thinking about tragic politics in terms of the process by which dissent is enacted and managed.

Aimed at both scholar and student, including anyone interested in the origins of political thought, this book demonstrates not only the fundamental importance of debate to these genres, but also the ways representations of debate construct an agonistic mentality which intersects with and informs the broader cultural construction of a citizen community.
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The paper examines the presence of the so-called 'Euripidean' asynartete 2ia 2 tr ΛΛ in the lyrics of Euripides' preserved tragedies (Hippolytus, Suppliant Women, Trojan Women, Phoenissae) with the aim to observe its function in each context and to establish if the two cola can actually form a single verse. The sequence 2ia 2 tr ΛΛ occurs as a (sometimes internal) clausula in iambo-trochaic contexts, where it emphasizes the rhythmical opposition, or in a mainly iambic context, where it produces a contrast effect. When there is synapheia between the two cola, they likely form an asynartete verse, whereas when there is dieresis, the asynartete nature of the sequence is doubtful, but can be supported by metrical-rhythmical and thematic considerations.

In the Athenian dramatic literature of the late fifth and early fourth centuries BC, the interjection ἆ appears to undergo a process of semantic reduction and specialization, which mainly results in a prohibitive meaning. The subsequent identification of prohibitive ἆ with Euripidean diction forms the basis for Aristophanic parody. Diachronic considerations suggest that, once the specialization has put the focus on the prohibitive sense, so that ἆ comes to express something like "stop doing that! ", the interjection may finally convey this prohibitive meaning autonomously, without the cooperation of any other directive utterance. E. HF 629, E. HF 1052 and E. Ba. 810 are cited as instances where ἆ thus means "stop doing that!", thereby constituting a specifically Euripidean idiom.

This article uses evidence drawn from hymenaios and wedding ritual to reach a new interpretation of the third stasimon of the Hippolytos, and its rôle in the play. There is longstanding contention about whether a second (male) chorus participates in the ode, singing in antiphony with the existing tragic chorus. Even scholars who accept that a second chorus is present have tended to regard it as an aberration which needs to be explained away, rather than a deliberate choice with poetic significance. I discuss the cultural implications of such a chorus, examining our evidence for real-life mixed choruses, and then applying this to the ode itself. The evidence for mixed choruses suggests they are strongly associated with marriage. Looking more closely at the language and imagery of the ode, there are allusions to the topoi of wedding songs and ritual running through it. The ode can use these as a device to trigger deep-rooted responses and associations from the audience, as these motifs are drawn from the cultural tradition which the audience shares. The topoi tie in with the theme of marriage and sexuality within the Hippolytos as a whole. But while their usual purpose is to set up conventional models and ways of thinking, the way they are deployed in the ode in fact serves to undermine these models, and to put a darker spin on the norms of sexual behaviour. This strand of imagery therefore also provides a filter for interpreting Hippolytos' own attitude towards sexuality, and a guide to how we are meant to respond to it.

This essay challenges dominant interpretations of Foucault’s lectures on parrhesia as affirming an ethical, non-political conception of truth-telling. I read the lectures instead as depicting truth-telling as an always political predicament: of havingto appear distant from power (to achieve credibility), while also having to partake insome sense of political power (to render one’s truth significant). Read in this way, Foucault’s lectures help us to understand and address the disputed politicality of truth-telling – over who counts as a truth-teller, and what counts as the truth – that his ethical interpreters tend to neglect. Yet the essay also shows that Foucault’s depiction of thepredicament of truth-tellers is problematically gendered: focused on the masculine problem of moving in and out of the public sphere, rather than on the experience of the dispossessed, who are excluded from political power altogether. The essay mobilizes an alternative reading of one of Foucault’s key texts – Euripides’ Ion – to draw out an alternative, more democratic model of the predicament of truth-telling: of having to constitute power that can lend significant to truth-telling, while speaking from a position of powerlessness.

Orestes includes two messenger's speeches, each one placed in each of the two parts of the play, into which it is possible to divide the tragedy. Both speeches are peculiar in opposition to the messenger's habitual speeches of the Greek stage, because there is in them a union of conventional features with the proper ones of other tragic elements (agon and monody respectively), which reverberates in both cases in the authority of the speech. Since both parts of Orestes represent respectively different temporary and spatial planes, the peculiarities of the messenger's speeches point also, in my opinion, towards questions of content on different levels (not only on the literary level, but also on the historical and political one).

While readers of Euripides’ Hippolytus have long regarded Phaedra’s deltos as a mechanism of punitive revenge, I argue here that the tablet models itself on a judicial curse (defixio) and that its main function is to ensure victory for Phaedra in the upcoming “trial” over her reputation. In support of my thesis I examine three interrelated phenomena: first, Hippolytus’ infamous assertion that his tongue swore an oath while hismind remains unsworn (612); second, Phaedra’s status as a 'biaiothanatos'; and third, Phaedra’s claim that Hippolytus “will learn sophrosune” (731), a speech act that, I conclude, anticipates the silencing effect on Hippolytus of Phaedra’s death and her writing.

This paper examines how lament in Greek tragedy is conceptualized as both highly skillful song and inarticulate noise, and how the slippage between these two apparently contradictory characteristics could be exploited for dramatic effect. I demonstrate how the twofold nature of lament is bound up not just with its ritual practice (the combination of the góos wail and the more formal thrēnos) but with its association with birdsong and displays of extreme emotion by females and foreigners.

In lieu of an abstract, here is a preview of the article.

EURIPIDES’ MEDEA is a character who is adept at speaking many languages. To the chorus of Corinthian women, she presents herself as a woman like any other, but with fewer resources; to Jason in the agon she speaks as if man to man, articulating her claim to the appropriate returns of charis and philia. Even when she addresses herself, in the great monologue, two distinct voices appear, that of the pitiful mother who loves her children and, opposed to this, the voice of the heroic warrior who demands revenge. The subject of this article will not be the versatility of Medea's speech, per se.  Rather, I will consider the narrower but related issue of how—with what words and weapons—Medea enacts her revenge on Jason.

In depicting an apocalyptic expectation of the revelation of God's children (Rom 8.19–23), Paul personifies 'creation': awaiting the revelation of these children, she 'groans and suffers pains of childbirth.' While Paul's vision is framed with scriptural allusions, Greek and Roman images of Earth Mother also provide a relevant juxtaposition. This study recovers such a context by surveying sources ranging from Hesiod's Gaia to the Roman Terra Mater. Philo provides an especially relevant comparative model, as he relates biblical cosmology to Greek mythological sources and asserts that earth's role as mother is also attested in Genesis. In light of these comparisons, fresh insights emerge: maternal creation gives birth to a new divine era, yet for Paul this remains a future hope rather than a past (mythological) or present (political) occurrence.

This book explores how Greek tragedy, comedy and satyr drama exploit the cultural practice of oath swearing. I argue that scenes in dramas such as Euripides' Medea reflect actual oath ceremonies, such as treaty oaths (in the case of Medea), or citizenship oaths (in the case of Sophocles' Philoctetes). I explore how the gender, status and age of oath-swearers are reflected in the felicity (to use the terminology of Speech Act theory) of the oath.

In lieu of an abstract, here is a preview of the article.

Imagine that becoming Athenian were as simple as opening a basket and finding therein the objects needed to secure your citizenship. This is the fantasy dramatized by Euripides’ Ion, where things in a basket—a woven aegis, golden snakes, and an olive wreath—reunite the hero with his long lost mother and his native city. There is something paradoxical, however, in “re-cognizing” what one has never known. Recognition presupposes familiarity, whereas Ion’s story is that of a foundling baby, abandoned at birth, then rescued and raised by Apollo in a foreign city. How is he to know his mother when he finds her? This essay sets out to explore the cultural agency of the tokens that enable this unusual kind of recognition.

Euripides' depiction of the murder of Aegisthus is intended to suggest the distinctive image of the boutupos rising on tiptoe to administer the death-blow at the Bouphonia, with Aegisthus assuming the role of the ox whose fate is sealed when it approaches the altar and touches the offerings. The rite of the Bouphonia, with its excessive concern for the justification of ritual bloodshed and its emotionally charged atmosphere, provides a suitable backdrop against which to play out Orestes' felling of Aegisthus; the recollection of this rite weighs against those readings that flatly deny the existence of disturbing features in the Euripidean account.

""Recent scholarship in Classics and related fields has shown great interest in letters and epistolary literature of all forms (e.g. Morello and Morrison 2007; Trapp 2003; Rosenmeyer 2001).  The use of embedded letters to advance the narrative in genres such as historiography and the novel, and the potential for real or pseudonymous letters to function as biography (real or fictionalized), autobiography, or historical fiction, mean that letters in antiquity play a crucial role in the development of narrative literature of many kinds.  The apparent popularity of letters as reading matter rather than merely tools for communication, especially in the Imperial period, makes it essential that we pay attention to this genre, as we assess the reading practices and literary preferences of antiquity. The literary qualities of Greek letters are often overlooked, despite the fact that they display the same kind of awareness of generic conventions and self-consciousness of their literary nature as other narrative genres. 
Letters are always about narrative, among other things, whether directly – narrating events to absent correspondents - or indirectly – presenting fragments of an underlying narrative that the reader attempts to reconstruct.  This collection of essays explores the inherent narrative quality of letters and its use by Greek authors in a variety of genres and time periods, as well as the limited and sometimes even willfully obscure nature of epistolary narratives that omit vital information in the name of verisimilitude.  A series of case studies, with topics ranging from Classical poetry and historiography through to Philostratus and Christian martyrs, asks why particular authors choose the letter form; how an embedded letter relates to its narrative environment, and, conversely, the effect of the epistolary form on the narrative it contains; and how each author manipulates the epistolary tradition.  It explores various types of epistolary forms:  individual letters (embedded or free-standing); collections of continuous epistolary narrative; and letters presenting fragmented or discontinuous narrative.  It pays close attention to the self-consciously literary or fictional qualities in Greek letters, including intertextuality with other literary texts and particularly allusions to earlier letters as literature.  A chronological organization of the volume encourages the reader to consider epistolary narrative as a kind of literature that develops over time, growing in popularity and in the variety of forms it takes.  ""

The Demeter Ode in the Helen has no obvious connection to the plot of the play: commentators traditionally explained it away as being merely decorative. This article follows from the work of Guepin and Foley, who see Persephone’s story as analogous to the abduction and return motif in the Helen. I examine the ode through the filter of parthenaic imagery and motifs which I argue runs through the play. By reinterpreting the ode in this light, I also suggest an answer to the question which has caused much confusion: why do the chorus say that Helen has made Demeter angry?"

This reading of Euripides' 'Alcestis' (438 BC?) considers the operations of gift-giving, as organized around the word "charis" (favor).  The approach is defined as an "ethical-sociological" one, and deploys a paradigm of Pierre Bourdeiu.  The relations of gift-giving, whose dynamics and terms link the many gods and humans in this ironic "prosatyric" play, break down in their expected transactional conventions, but,  in doing so, also open up a horizon of late-learning tragic humanism.

"Il contributo offre un saggio di edizione critica dell’Exegesis in canonem iambicum di Eustazio di Tessalonica (acrostico e irmo dell’ode prima). Al testo critico sono premessi cenni sulle vicende dell’opera in età moderna, ma soprattutto è anteposta una riflessione metodologica sulle nuove sfide imposte al filologo dalle peculiarità della letteratura dotta e in generale della hochsprachliche Literatur bizantine. Sia la constitutio textus sia l’apparatus fontium devono infatti, rispettivamente, tenere conto e dare conto della fitta trama di citazioni che si intrecciano nel testo, quasi mai esplicitate ma anzi per lo più sottaciute, se non occultate, in un incessante gioco di bravura che si direbbe quasi vòlto a mettere alla prova, così come le conoscenze del lettore o dell’ascoltatore bizantino, tanto più quelle dell’editore moderno. Nella trattazione che precede il saggio di edizione e nel suo apparato critico si evidenziano da un lato esempi delle molte reminiscenze – sia classiche (Omero, Aristofane, Pindaro, Euripide etc.), sia bibliche e patristiche (Gregorio Nisseno, Giovanni Damasceno), sia di autori contemporanei (Gregorio di Corinto) – che permeano il testo, intrecciando fra loro cultura sacra e profana e rivelando la multiformità e complessità della “biblioteca” di Eustazio. D’altra parte, si sottolinea la necessità, nell’ecdotica del testo e specie ai fini di una corretta impostazione dell’apparatus fontium, di individuare i tramiti attraverso cui le citazioni e le reminiscenze, classiche ma anche patristiche o scritturali, sono giunte all’autore. Nella maggior parte dei casi, occorre postulare la mediazione dell’innografia e della liturgia per le citazioni sacre, e per le citazioni classiche il filtro delle raccolte, dei repertori, degli etimologici e dei lessici, come ad esempio l’Etymologicum Magnum e il lessico di Suida, che componevano la “scrivania” di Eustazio.

A critical edition essai of Eustathius of Thessalonica’s Exegesis in canonem iambicum (acrostic and heirmos of ode 1): the critical text includes introductory remarks on the fortune of the work in the modern era and, in particular, a concluding methodological observation on the new challenges imposed on philologists by the peculiarities of the learned literature and, more generally, the Byzantine hochsprachliche Literatur. Both the constitutio textus and the apparatus fontium must, in fact, consider and account for the dense network of citations woven throughout the text.  These are almost never explicitly explained, but rather are for the most part hinted at, if not in fact hidden, in a constant game of virtuosity which almost seems intended to test the Byzantine reader’s and/or listener’s knowledge, as much as that of the modern editor.  In the introductory treatise to the critical essay, the author highlights, on the one hand, examples of many echoes – classical (Homer, Aristophanes, Pindar, Euripides etc.), biblical and patristic (Gregory of Nyssa, John of Damascus), and contemporary authors (Gregory of Corinth) – permeating the text, weaving sacred and profane culture, and exposing the complex, multiform nature of Eustathius’s “library.”  On the other hand, for the purposes of the textual ecdotics and in order to establish a correct organisation of the apparatus fontium, she underscores the need to isolate the intermediaries by which the classical, biblical, and patristic citations and echoes reached the author. In most cases, we should posit the mediation of hymns and liturgy for the religious, and for the classical the filter of collections, catalogues, etymologies, and lexicons, such as the Etymologicum Magnum and the Suidae Lexicon, which made up Eustathius’s “desktop.”"

The tragedians' frequent citation of euboulia (`deliberative virtue') helped audiences to connect the deliberations of tragic characters to the discourses and politics of their own cities in their own time. Euripides' Suppliant Women draws on, and problematizes, contemporary Athenian debates about the extent and nature of the city's euboulia. The important role of pity and sungnomē (`sympathy') in affecting deliberation is also highlighted by this play. The Rhesus is less Atheno-centric but shows Greeks that euboulia, while valuable, is often thwarted by bad luck or divine intervention. Hector's character and actions valorize group consultation. But the plan he agrees upon does not avert disaster. Meanwhile, Odysseus shows that individual leaders sometimes need to be eubouloi without recourse to the advice of others. Both plays model better and worse ways of deliberating whilst at the same time reminding Greeks (especially Athenians) that there are always unknowns which can't be planned for.

This chapter reassesses how tragedy is political: rather than focussing only on tragedy’s subject matter and the extent of its political or democratic referentiality, it draws attention to the language and form used, and the process through which an audience are invited to go by virtue of a play’s discourse and structure. Taking Euripides's Orestes as a case study, it examines instances of frank speech in conjuncture with the play’s formal structure in order to bring out Euripides’ thematisation of dissent and assess the repercussions that follow for thinking about tragedy’s politics more generally.