Euripides was a tragedian of classical Athens. Along with Aeschylus and Sophocles, he is one of the three ancient Greek tragedians for whom any plays have survived in full. Some ancient scholars attributed ninety-five plays to him, but the Suda says it was ninety-two at most. Of these, eighteen or nineteen have survived more or less complete. There are many fragments of most of his other plays. More of his plays have survived intact than those of Aeschylus and Sophocles together, partly because his popularity grew as theirs declined—he became, in the Hellenistic Age, a cornerstone of ancient literary education, along with Homer, Demosthenes, and Menander.
Tragedy is a genre of drama based on human suffering and, mainly, the terrible or sorrowful events that befall a main character. Traditionally, the intention of tragedy is to invoke an accompanying catharsis, or a "pain [that] awakens pleasure,” for the audience. While many cultures have developed forms that provoke this paradoxical response, the term tragedy often refers to a specific tradition of drama that has played a unique and important role historically in the self-definition of Western civilization. That tradition has been multiple and discontinuous, yet the term has often been used to invoke a powerful effect of cultural identity and historical continuity—"the Greeks and the Elizabethans, in one cultural form; Hellenes and Christians, in a common activity," as Raymond Williams puts it.
The Bacchae is an ancient Greek tragedy, written by the Athenian playwright Euripides during his final years in Macedonia, at the court of Archelaus I of Macedon. It premiered posthumously at the Theatre of Dionysus in 405 BC as part of a tetralogy that also included Iphigeneia at Aulis and Alcmaeon in Corinth, and which Euripides' son or nephew is assumed to have directed. It won first prize in the City Dionysia festival competition.
Electra, also spelt Elektra, is one of the most popular mythological characters in tragedies. She is the main character in two Greek tragedies, Electra by Sophocles and Electra by Euripides. She is also the central figure in plays by Aeschylus, Alfieri, Voltaire, Hofmannsthal, and Eugene O'Neill. She is a vengeful soul in The Libation Bearers, the second play of Aeschylus' Oresteia trilogy. She plans out an attack with her brother to kill their mother, Clytemnestra.
Medea is an ancient Greek tragedy written by Euripides. It is based upon the myth of Jason and Medea and was first produced in 431 BC as part of a trilogy; the two other plays have not survived. The plot centers on the actions of Medea, a former princess of the kingdom of Colchis, and the wife of Jason; she finds her position in the Greek world threatened as Jason leaves her for a Greek princess of Corinth. Medea takes vengeance on Jason by murdering his new wife as well as her own two sons, after which she escapes to Athens to start a new life.
Iphigenia in Aulis or Iphigenia at Aulis is the last of the extant works by the playwright Euripides. Written between 408, after Orestes, and 406 BC, the year of Euripides' death, the play was first produced the following year in a trilogy with The Bacchae and Alcmaeon in Corinth by his son or nephew, Euripides the Younger, and won first place at the City Dionysia in Athens.
Oliver Taplin, FBA is a retired British academic and classicist. He was a fellow of Magdalen College and Professor of Classical Languages and Literature at the University of Oxford. He holds a DPhil from Oxford University.
Rhesus is an Athenian tragedy that belongs to the transmitted plays of Euripides. Its authorship has been disputed since antiquity, and the issue has invested modern scholarship since the 17th century when the play's authenticity was challenged, first by Joseph Scaliger and subsequently by others, partly on aesthetic grounds and partly on account of peculiarities in the play's vocabulary, style and technique. The conventional attribution to Euripides remains controversial.
Jacqueline Worms de Romilly was a French philologist, classical scholar and fiction writer. She was the first woman nominated to the Collège de France, and in 1988, the second woman to enter the Académie française.
The Charition mime is a Greek theatre play, in fact more properly to be called a farce or burlesque rather than a mime, which is found in Papyrus Oxyrhynchus 413. The manuscript, which is possibly incomplete, is untitled, and the play's name comes from the name of its protagonist. It is approximately dated to the 2nd century CE, and the play was probably performed in Egypt, where the manuscript was found.
Patricia Elizabeth Easterling, FBA is an English classical scholar, recognised as a particular expert on the work of Sophocles. She was Regius Professor of Greek at the University of Cambridge from 1994 to 2001. She was the 36th person and the first — and, so far, only — woman to hold the post.
Marianne McDonald is a scholar and philanthropist. Marianne is involved in the interpretation, sharing, compilation, and preservation of Greek and Irish texts, plays and writings. Recognized as a historian on the classics, she has received numerous awards and accolades because of her works and philanthropy. As a playwright, she has authored numerous modern works, based on ancient Greek dramas in modern times. As a teacher and mentor, she is highly sought after for her knowledge of and application of the classic themes and premises of life in modern times. In 2013, she was awarded the Distinguished Professor of Theatre and Classics, Department of Theatre, Classics Program, University of California, San Diego. In 1994, she was inducted into the Royal Irish Academy, being recognized for her expertise and academic excellence in Irish language history, interpretation and the preservation of ancient Irish texts. As a philanthropist, Marianne partnered with Sharp to enhance access to drug and alcohol treatment programs by making a $3 million pledge — the largest gift to benefit behavioral health services in Sharp’s history. Her donation led to the creation of the McDonald Center at Sharp HealthCare. Additionally, to recognize her generosity, Sharp Vista Pacifica Hospital was renamed Sharp McDonald Center.
James Henry Weldon Morwood was an English classicist and author. He taught at Harrow School, where he was Head of Classics, and at Oxford University, where he was a Fellow of Wadham College, and also Dean. He wrote almost thirty books, ranging from biography to translations and academic studies of Classical literature.
The Archive of Performances of Greek and Roman Drama (APGRD) is a research project based at the University of Oxford, England, founded in 1996 by Edith Hall and Oliver Taplin. The current director is Fiona Macintosh.
The Oxford University Classical Drama Society (OUCDS) is the funding body behind the triennial Oxford Greek Play, an institution that has lasted for over 130 years.
Amy Marjorie Dale,, published as A. M. Dale, was a British classicist and academic.
Barbara Elizabeth Goff is a Classics Professor at the University of Reading. She specialises in Greek tragedy and its reception; women in antiquity; postcolonial classics and reception of Greek political thought.
Fiona Macintosh is Professor of Classical Reception at the University of Oxford, Director of the Archive of Performances of Greek and Roman Drama, Curator of the Ioannou Centre, and a Fellow of St Hilda's College, Oxford.
Rosa Andújar, FHEA, is a Dominican-American classicist and senior lecturer at King's College London. She is an expert in ancient Greek tragedy, especially the tragic chorus, and Hellenic classicisms in Latin America.
Isabel Ruffell is a Classicist. She is a Professor of Greek Drama and Culture at the University of Glasgow.
