A Companion to Euripides

Euripides has enjoyed a resurgence of interest as a result of many recent important publications, attesting to the poet s enduring relevance to the modern world. A Companion to Euripides is the product of this contemporary work, with many essays drawing on the latest texts, commentaries, and scholarship on the man and his oeuvre.

Divided into seven sections, the companion begins with a general discussion of Euripidean drama. The following sections contain essays on Euripidean biography and the manuscript tradition, and individual essays on each play, organized in chronological order. Chapters offer summaries of important scholarship and methodologies, synopses of individual plays and the myths from which they borrow their plots, and conclude with suggestions for additional reading. The final two sections deal with topics central to Euripidean scholarship, such as religion, myth and gender, and the reception of Euripides from the 4th century BCE to the modern world.

A Companion to Euripides brings together a variety of leading Euripides scholars from a wide range of perspectives. As a result, specific issues and themes emerge across the chapters as central to our understanding of the poet and his meaning for our time. Contributions are original and provocative interpretations of Euripides plays, which forge important paths of inquiry for future scholarship.

Notes on Contributors viii

Acknowledgments xiii

List of Abbreviations xiv

1 Introduction 1
Laura K. McClure

PART I Text, Author, and Tradition 9

2 Text and Transmission 11
Donald J. Mastronarde

3 The Euripidean Biography 27
Ruth Scodel

4 Euripides and the Development of Greek Tragedy 42
John Gibert

PART II Early Plays (438 416 bce) 59

5 Alcestis 61
Eirene Visvardi

6 Medea 80
Laura Swift

7 Children of Heracles 92
Owen E. Goslin

8 Hippolytus 107
Mary Ebbott  

9 Andromache 122
Ian C. Storey

10 Hecuba 136
Daniel Turkeltaub

11 Suppliant Women 152
Laura K. McClure

12 Electra 166
Hanna M. Roisman

13 Heracles: The Perfect Piece 182
C.W. Marshall

PART III Later Plays (After 416 bce) 197

14 Trojan Women 199
Nancy Sorkin Rabinowitz

15 Iphigenia in Tauris 214
Jennifer Clarke Kosak

16 Ion: An Edible Fairy Tale? 228
Emma M. Griffiths

17 Significant Inconsistencies in Euripides Helen 243
Deborah Boedeker

18 Phoenician Women 258
Anna A. Lamari

19 Orestes 270
Elton Barker

20 Iphigenia at Aulis 284
Isabelle Torrance

21 Bacchae 298
Laurialan Reitzammer

PART IV Satyr, Spurious, and Fragmentary Plays 313

22 Cyclops 315
Patrick O Sullivan

23 Rhesus 334
Vayos Liapis

24 Fragments and Fragmentary Plays 347
Christopher Collard

PART V Form, Structure, and Performance 365

25 Form and Structure 367
Markus Dubischar

26 The Theater of Euripides 390
David Kawalko Roselli

27 The Euripidean Chorus 412
Sheila Murnaghan

28 Euripides and the Sound of Music 428
Armand D Angour

PART VI Topics and Approaches 445

29 Euripides and his Intellectual Context 447
Francis M. Dunn

30 Myth 468
Matthew Wright

31 Euripides and Religion 483
Judith Fletcher

32 Gender 500
Melissa Mueller

PART VII Reception 515

33 Euripides, Aristophanes, and the Reception of Sophistic Styles 517
Nancy Worman

34 Euripides in the Fourth Century bce 533
Anne Duncan

35 Euripides and Senecan Drama 546
Christopher Star

36 All Aboard the Bacchae Bus: Reception of Euripides in the Twentieth and Twenty ]first Centuries 565
Barbara Goff

Index 583

Laura K. McClure is Professor of Classics at the University of Wisconsin, Madison. Her books include Spoken Like a Woman: Speech and Gender in Athenian Drama (1999) and Courtesans at Table: Gender and Greek Literary Culture in Athenaeus (2003). She has edited volumes on women and gender in the classical world and published articles on Athenian drama.