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This page intentionally left blank 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 a consistent human character, and to the quest for certainty and closure. donald j. mastronarde is Melpomene Distinguished Professor of Classics at the University of California, Berkeley. He has published extensively on Greek tragedy and Euripides in particular, including Euripides: Medea (Cambridge, 2002) and Euripides: Phoenissae (Cambridge, 1994). THE ART OF EURIPIDES Dramatic Technique and Social Context DONALD J. MASTRONARDE Melpomene Professor of Classics, University of California, Berkeley CAMBRIDGE UNIVERSITY PRESS Cambridge, New York, Melbourne, Madrid, Cape Town, Singapore, São Paulo, Delhi, Dubai, Tokyo Cambridge University Press The Edinburgh Building, Cambridge CB2 8RU, UK Published in the United States of America by Cambridge University Press, New York www.cambridge.org Information on this title: www.cambridge.org/9780521768399 © Donald J. Mastronarde This publication is in copyright. Subject to statutory exception and to the provision of relevant collective licensing agreements, no reproduction of any part may take place without the written permission of Cambridge University Press. First published in print format 2010 ISBN-13 978-0-511-67740-3 eBook (NetLibrary) ISBN-13 978-0-521-76839-9 Hardback Cambridge University Press has no responsibility for the persistence or accuracy of urls for external or third-party internet websites referred to in this publication, and does not guarantee that any content on such websites is, or will remain, accurate or appropriate. Contents Preface Abbreviations and reference system page vii xi 1. Approaching Euripides Pre-modern reception From the Renaissance to German Classicism The nineteenth and twentieth centuries Current debates: tragedy, democracy, and teaching The approaches and scope of this book Appendix: a brief guide to Euripides’ plays 1 1 9 12 15 25 28 2. Problems of genre Genre: expectations, variety, and change Tragedy, satyr-play, and the comic Generic labels and their problems 44 44 54 58 3. Dramatic structures: variety and unity Open form and structural strategies Double structures Strategies of juxtaposition A final example: Orestes Open structures and the challenge of tragedy 63 64 68 77 83 85 4. The chorus The chorus and the audience Limits on identification and authority The chorus and knowledge The chorus and moral and interpretive authority Myth in the choral odes v 88 89 98 106 114 122 Contents vi Connection and relevance (1) Connection and relevance of the parodos (2) Connection and relevance in the stasima “Not as in Euripides but as in Sophocles” 126 127 130 145 5. The gods Preliminary considerations on Greek religion and the divine The drama of human belief Criticism and speculation Seen god