The Art of Euripides

In 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.

• First comprehensive reassessment of Euripides for many years, by a leading scholar in the field
• Considers all the complete surviving plays as well as the fragmentary plays, thereby providing the reader with a fuller, more balanced view of one of the most important ancient Greek playwrights
• Mediates between formalist studies and social/ideological studies, guiding the reader to what is valuable in different approaches and avoiding oversimplified responses based on a single approach