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Iphigenia in Aulis by Euripides Translated by Nicholas Rudall Directed by Charles Newell
STUDY GUIDE Photo of Mark L. Montgomery, Stephanie Andrea Barron, and Sandra Marquez by joe mazza/brave lux, inc Sponsored by Iphigenia in Aulis by Euripides Translated by Nicholas Rudall Directed by Charles Newell SETTING The action takes place in east-central Greece at the port of Aulis, on the Euripus Strait. The time is approximately 1200 BCE. CHARACTERS Agamemnon father of Iphigenia, husband of Clytemnestra and King of Mycenae Menelaus brother of Agamemnon Clytemnestra mother of Iphigenia, wife of Agamemnon Iphigenia daughter of Agamemnon and Clytemnestra Achilles son of Peleus Chorus women of Chalcis who came to Aulis to see the Greek army Old Man servant of Agamemnon, was given as part of Clytemnestra’s dowry Messenger ABOUT THE PLAY Iphigenia in Aulis is the last existing work of the playwright Euripides. Written between 408 and 406 BCE, the year of Euripides’ death, the play was first produced the following year in a trilogy with The Bacchaeand Alcmaeon in Corinth by his son, Euripides the Younger, and won the first place at the Athenian City Dionysia festival. Agamemnon Costume rendering by Jacqueline Firkins. 2 SYNOPSIS At the start of the play, Agamemnon reveals to the Old Man that his army and warships are stranded in Aulis due to a lack of sailing winds. The winds have died because Agamemnon is being punished by the goddess Artemis, whom he offended. The only way to remedy this situation is for Agamemnon to sacrifice his daughter, Iphigenia, to the goddess Artemis. Agamemnon then admits that he has sent for Iphigenia to be brought to Aulis but he has changed his mind. -
Nagy Commentary on Euripides, Herakles
Informal Commentary on Euripides, Herakles by Gregory Nagy 97 The idea of returning from Hades implies a return from death 109f The mourning swan... Cf. the theme of the swansong. Cf. 692ff. 113 “The phantom of a dream”: cf. skias onar in Pindar Pythian 8. 131f “their father’s spirit flashing from their eyes”: beautiful rendition! 145f Herakles’ hoped-for return from Hades is equated with a return from death, with resurrection; see 297, where this theme becomes even more overt; also 427ff. 150 Herakles as the aristos man: not that he is regularly described in this drama as the best of all humans, not only of the “Greeks” (also at 183, 209). See also the note on 1306. 160 The description of the bow as “a coward’s weapon” is relevant to the Odysseus theme in the Odyssey 203 sôzein to sôma ‘save the body’... This expression seems traditional: if so, it may support the argument of some linguists that sôma ‘body’ is derived from sôzô ‘save’. By metonymy, the process of saving may extend to the organism that is destined to be saved. 270 The use of kleos in the wording of the chorus seems to refer to the name of Herakles; similarly in the wording of Megara at 288 and 290. Compare the notes on 1334 and 1369. 297 See at 145f above. Cf. the theme of Herakles’ wrestling with Thanatos in Euripides Alcestis. 342ff Note the god-hero antagonism as expressed by Amphitryon. His claim that he was superior to Zeus in aretê brings out the meaning of ‘striving’ in aretê (as a nomen actionis derived from arnumai; cf. -
Dionysus (3): the God's Epiphanies in the Bacchae
CHAPTER EIGHT DIONYSUS (3): THE GOD'S EPIPHANIES IN THE BACCHAE In comparing the Homeric hymn to Dionysus with the Bacchae (p. 123) it has been established that in his play Euripides prevented the ap pearance of the actor portraying Dionysus from acquiring the naturalness of an epic epiphany; the poet achieved this by continually bringing the audience face to face with the fact that the appearance of the Lydian had an epiphanic character, but that at the same time this epiphanic character was not experienced by Pentheus; in other words, the poet applied a sort of alienation effect. It was then suggested that Euripides weaves together the epiphanic motives in his plot into the principium actionis: the con tinuous oppressive or liberating presence of a god among mortals. Con sideration of the epiphanic action of the god in the Bacchae supports these claims. In the prologue and the exodos of the Bacchae we meet a theatrical con vention frequently used by Euripides, the appearance of a divinity on the stage. This appearance can be called a stage epiphany; from the spec tator's point of view these appearances have no referential aspects of meaning, because the way in which the god speaks his prologue or ap pears as a deus ex machina on the tragic stage, does not refer to the way in which gods might be perceived in the reality outside the theatre. This stage epiphany therefore stands outside the categories of epic, mythical, cult and soteriological epiphanies (p. 114 f. ), and the action ofthe god taking part in the complications of the plot is in strong contrast to it. -
The Ancient Reception of Euripides' Bacchae from Athens to Byzantium
Simon Perris and Fiachra Mac Góráin The ancient reception of Euripides’ Bacchae from Athens to Byzantium Abstract: This chapter offers a reception history of Euripides’ Bacchae from its original production until its intertextual transformation in the Byzantine Christus Patiens. It traces a broad arc from Classical Athens through the Roman Empire, taking in also Hellenistic Alexandria, the Greek-speaking East, Christianity, and Byzantine literature. By examining the cultural contexts and inflections of the different receptions of one poetic text – Greek, Roman and Italian, ‘Eastern’, and Christian – it exposes distinctions between religious or cultural attitudes to Bac- chus/Dionysus across a broad range of Greek and Latin sources. The discussion is divided into four thematic sections, within which receptions are mostly pre- sented in chronological order: Classic Bacchae; Performances; Narratives; and Christian discourse. These sections encompass drama, epic, didactic, epyllion, historiography, biography, epigram, scholarly citations, and theological texts. A selection of the most significant case studies receive in-depth discussion in the body of the chapter; for completeness, the reception history of Bacchae is filled out by listing additional receptions in summary form in an appendix. Introduction Euripides’ Bacchae was undoubtedly the single most influential literary text for constructions of Dionysus throughout Greco-Roman antiquity. In this chapter, we examine how receptions of the play across the spectrum of Greek and Roman literature act as a barometer for cultural attitudes to Dionysus. Many of the most significant and revealing receptions occur in Latin texts or in Greek texts that deal with Roman subjects, whether Plutarch’s Antony, Greek epigrams about Italian pantomime performances, or Christian writings polemicizing against Greek and Roman cults. -
The Bacchae of Euripides
The Bacchae of Euripides By Wole Soyinka Directed by Prof. Judyie Al-Bilali Dramaturgy by Prof. Megan Lewis STUDY GUIDE Contact: Prof Megan Lewis [email protected] DIRECTOR’S NOTE Dionysus and his magnificent initiates, the Bacchantes, have come back for me. I met them twenty years ago when I directed this same adaptation by distinguished Nigerian Nobel Laureate, Wole Soyinka. I embraced his vision as it foregrounds the social and political transformations inherent to the ancient drama, and now two decades later, Soyinka’s script rings even more true as we face unprecedented environmental, ecological, and spiritual challenges. A play is relevant after 2,400 years because it illuminates primal forces, notable among them, sexuality. Dionysus, called by many names including ‘The Liberator’ has often symbolized gender fluidity. In the rigid caste system of ancient Greece, his devotees included slaves, women, and foreigners -- allowing those usually excluded to participate in the annual Dionysian festivals. Our play is set in 2020, just across the threshold into the upcoming decade, at the pivot point of a new era in human history. Our location is Gaia, the mythological Greek name recognizing our beloved and beleaguered planet Earth as a sentient, living goddess. Right now, Gaia demands our attention. She calls us beyond ideology to unity, a call we must heed for our survival as a species. Myth is how we navigate and ultimately evolve both individual and collective psyches. Myth must change for us to grow. Artists are the antennae for society and we are re-imagining Euripides’ myth of Dionysus to address our need for balance between reason and passion. -
IPHIGENIA in a ULIS Translated by Charles R
IPHIGENIA IN A ULIS Translated by Charles R. Walker « IPHIGENIA IN AULIS » gives her life (much as Joan of Arc did) in accordance with what she INTRODUCTION TO regards as the "divine will" and the needs ofher country. IPHIGENIA IN AULIS I have suggested that the play is more modern than most Greek tragedies; perhaps it is more modern than any of them. But in what sense is it modern? First of all in techniques of the theater: it is full of Lm Iphigenia in Aulis was produced, together with the Bacchae and new dramatic devices as well as a concentration of old ones. Instead the Alcmaeon, at the Great Dionysia in March, 405 B.C., a few months of theforn1al Euripidean prologue giving the audience background after Euripides' death. It seems probable that Euripides' son (some for _the plot, the~e isalively duologue full of dramatic tension be say his nephew) produced the play and perhaps filled in parts of the tween Agamemnon and a servant. (An old-style prologue also exists script which Euripides had left incomplete at the time ofhis death. and in this version is integrated into the dialogue, ll. 49-114.) The The play is full ofinvention and dramatic reversals. Some classical chor_l1s is no Jqnger essential to the dramatic action but it often critics, dubbing it pure melodrama, have felt that it represented a esta~lishes the mood. It consists in this play of women who have woeful falling-off from the sterner standards of Greek tragedy. Most crossed over from their native Chalcis to Aulis, apparently as sight students of dramatic literature find it an exciting "transition piece," seers to see the heroes and the famous Greek fleet. -
Plutarch's Pyrrhus and Euripides' Phoenician Women
Histos () – PLUTARCH’S PYRRHUS AND EURIPIDES’ PHOENI- CIAN WOMEN : BIOGRAPHY AND TRAGEDY ON PLEONECTIC PARENTING The principal concern of this paper is to explore the relevance of Euripides’ Phoenician Women to Plutarch’s Life of Pyrrhus. It will be argued that the rele- vance of the play is much more substantial than usually acknowledged: that its relevance goes beyond the two direct quotations from the play which oc- cur in the Life . It is worth stressing at the outset that of the five quotations from the play in Plutarch’s extant Lives as a whole, two are in the Pyrrhus : that may plausibly be claimed as a concentration ( Pyrrh. and ; cf. Demetr . ; Sull . ; Comp. Nic.-Crass . ). In what follows, I shall attempt to explain how and why the play matters to a reading of the Life . The essence of my claim is that the reader’s knowledge of Euripides’ play is made to provide what may be termed ‘added value’ to Plutarch’s Life , with the further validation of Eu- ripidean authority. The general relevance to Plutarch’s Lives of Athenian tragedy (and in- deed of Homeric epic) has long been recognised. And Judith Mossman has explored tragic and epic elements in the Pyrrhus in particular. The aim of the present paper is to draw attention to the special relevance of a specific play to this Life . I shall argue that a reading of the Life should entail not only a broad awareness of tragedy (and epic), but a sustained memory of a particu- lar play as the Life unfolds. -
Euripides' Bacchae
The God in the Play: Euripides’ Bacchae HEATHER SEBO (the Democratic Assembly) didn’t meet, legal proceedings were halted, and prisoners were released from prison. Even though Dionysos is the god of drama and all the dramatic festivals in Attica were held Students need to be aware of the intensity and in his honour, the Bacchae is the only surviv- spectacle of the City Dionysia, its powerful ing play about the god himself, his birth, his religious and civic ritual meanings and the story, his music, the nature of his divinity. It is lavishness of the theatrical productions; the true that he appears onstage as a character in rich costuming, the crafting of masks, the Aristophanes’ Frogs. But Frogs is about drama long period of rehearsals and preparation for and dramatic poetry rather than about the god plays that were usually given only a single himself. And although the gods often change performance. They need to be aware of the their form and appear as mortals in the Ho- magnificent dawn procession that escorted meric poems – think of Athene in the Odyssey – the god’s statue along with the omnipresent the Bacchae is the only extant play where a god phalloi to the theatre and opened the city to the takes on the appearance/guise of a mortal, as power of the god. They should know that the he says in the play’s opening lines, ‘I am here, dramatic performances were been preceded a god in mortal form’ (4-5). In the Bacchae, the by a display of tribute from Athens’ allies, the god of theatre appears at his own festival in honouring of distinguished citizens and a kind costume and in character. -
Kadmos Reloaded. the Shaping of Cultural Memory Between Phoenicia, Greece and Rome Corinne Bonnet
View metadata, citation and similar papers at core.ac.uk brought to you by CORE provided by Archive Ouverte en Sciences de l'Information et de la Communication Kadmos reloaded. The Shaping of Cultural Memory between Phoenicia, Greece and Rome Corinne Bonnet To cite this version: Corinne Bonnet. Kadmos reloaded. The Shaping of Cultural Memory between Phoenicia, Greece and Rome. Cercando con zelo di conoscere la storia fenicia. Atti della giornata di studi dedicata a Sergio Ribichini, Mar 2015, Rome, Italy. pp.49-61. hal-02171490 HAL Id: hal-02171490 https://hal.archives-ouvertes.fr/hal-02171490 Submitted on 6 Sep 2019 HAL is a multi-disciplinary open access L’archive ouverte pluridisciplinaire HAL, est archive for the deposit and dissemination of sci- destinée au dépôt et à la diffusion de documents entific research documents, whether they are pub- scientifiques de niveau recherche, publiés ou non, lished or not. The documents may come from émanant des établissements d’enseignement et de teaching and research institutions in France or recherche français ou étrangers, des laboratoires abroad, or from public or private research centers. publics ou privés. COLLEZIONE DI STUDI FENICI Cercando con zelo di conoscere la storia fenicia Atti della giornata di studi dedicata a Sergio Ribichini a cura di Giuseppe Garbati ISBN 978 88 8080 320 1 Consiglio Nazionale delle Ricerche Istituto di Studi sul Mediterraneo Antico ROMA 2018 CONSIGLIO NAZIONALE DELLE RICERCHE ISTITUTO DI STUDI SUL MEDITERRANEO ANTICO COLLEZIONE DI STUDI FENICI, 47 CERCANDO CON -
I Revision of Euripides' Tragedies by Contemporary Women Playwrights
Revision of Euripides’ Tragedies by Contemporary Women Playwrights DISSERTATION Presented in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree Doctor of Philosophy in the Graduate School of The Ohio State University By Mina Choi, M.A. Graduate Program in Theatre The Ohio State University 2013 Dissertation Committee: Lesley Ferris, Adviser Joy Reilly Beth Kattelman i Copyright by Mina Choi 2013 ii Abstract The issues addressed by the writers of fifth-century B.C. Athens continue to have great relevance for the contemporary world. This research focuses on the gender dynamics of the plays and how contemporary revisions by women offer new ways of considering these classic texts. Greek drama is known for its strong and vibrant female characters. I use Euripides’ three Greek tragedies--Medea, The Trojan Women, and The Bacchae--as the source texts for new versions of the plays by women writers. I draw on Lynda Hart’s triad of dramaturgical sites that define a feminist dramaturgy: women’s bodies, language, and theatrical space. Chapter two focuses on four revisions of Medea: Franca Rame’s Medea (1981), Jackie Crossland’s Collateral Damage (1991), Deborah Porter’s No More Medea (1990), and Marina Carr’s By the Bog of the Cats (1998). Unlike the character of Medea in Euripides’ play, who discusses Greek honor with heroic language, Rame’s Medea uses a dialect of central Italy, and Carr’s Hester, a stand-in for Medea, uses an Irish dialect illustrating that Medea is not an icon of monstrous motherhood but a particular woman suffering in the patriarchal world. These versions of Medea enter the stage to tell their side of the mythic story of maternal infanticide. -
The Function of the Deus Ex Machina in Euripidean Drama
The Function of the Deus ex Machina in Euripidean Drama Dissertation Presented in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree Doctor of Philosophy in the Graduate School of The Ohio State University By Christine Rose Elizabeth Hamilton, B.A. Graduate Program in Greek and Latin The Ohio State University 2017 Dissertation Committee: Dana L. Munteanu, Advisor Sarah Iles Johnston Thomas Richard Hawkins 1 Copyright by Christine Rose Elizabeth Hamilton 2017 2 Abstract This dissertation explores Euripides’ use of the deus ex machina device in his extant plays. While many scholars have discussed aspects of the deus ex machina my project explores the overall function not only of the deus ex machina within its play but also the function of two other aspects common to deus ex machina speeches: aitia and prophecy. I argue that deus ex machina interventions are not motivated by a problem in the plot that they must solve but instead they are used to connect the world of the play to the world of the audience through use of cult aitia and prophecy. In Chapter 1, I provide an analysis of Euripides’ deus ex machina scenes in the Hippolytus, Andromache, Suppliants, Electra, Ion, Iphigenia in Tauris, Helen, Orestes, Bacchae, and Medea. I argue that in all but the Orestes the intervention does not have a major effect on the plot or characters and I identify certain trends in the function of deus ex machina scenes such as consolation, enhancing Athenian pride, and increasing experimentation in the deus ex machina’s role in respect to the plot of the play and the wider world of myth. -
Read Or Download the Iphigenia in Aulis Program
in Aulis by Euripides Thursdays–Saturdays, 8:00 p.m. September 7–30, 2017 The Barbara and Lawrence Fleischman Theater at the Getty Villa TIMOTHY POTTS Performances of Greek and Roman drama have been very much at the heart DIRECTOR of the Getty Villa’s experience of ancient art and culture, especially since the by Euripides J. PAUL GETTY MUSEUM creation of an outdoor theater as part of the Villa’s expansion and refurbishment when it reopened to the public in 2006. Just as the collection of Greek and Ro- man art offers insights into the artistic world of these cultures, so the theater bears witness to the literature, mythology, and social life of classical times. The Greek playwright Euripides (ca. 480–406 BC) wrote about ninety plays, of which only nineteen survive; even this, however, is more than those of Aeschylus and Sophokles combined. The play you will see tonight, Iphigenia in Aulis, was first produced in Athens at the Great Dionysian festival of 405 BC, one year after Euripides’s death. In the Greek tradition of presenting tragedies as dramatic trilogies, Iphigenia was linked with The Bacchae, which also survives, and the lost Alcmaeon in Corinth. For this production Euripides was awarded first prize, a posthumous success for the man called by Aristotle (384–322 BC) “the most tragic of poets,” who despite his prolific output had won the prize only four times during his twenty-two-year career. Euripides’s maturity coincided with the last and most devastating phase of the Peloponnesian War between Athens and Sparta (431–404 BC).