Euripides: A Greek Playwrite - Personal Statement Example

? Euripides: A Greek Playwright The Ancient Greeks were very advanced for their time. In some senses they were pioneers who carved out the frontier of human experience. They are some of the first recorded people who used plot, character, and rhetoric to communicate a fictional story to audiences. What is most impressive is that even thought they were among the first to use these techniques, in many ways they remain the standard-bearers. Among the forefront of these thinkers and artists were a number of Greek playwrights known for their tragedies: Sophocles, Aeschylus, and Euripides. Sophocles is probably best known for his plays about Oedipus and Antigone, but Euripides should not be overlooked. His work for some time eclipsed that of his contemporaries. He was a thoughtful and powerful dramatist and his work bears significant scrutiny. Throughout his work he shows how difficult it is for humans to take control over their lives and how foolish any effort to do so is. The line from Alcestis, “You were a stranger to sorrow: therefore Fate has cursed you" is emblematic of his work. It is hard to know much of the personal lives of men who lived so many years ago. So many details about Euripides' life is lost in the fog of history, and so it is hard to know how much personal experiences influenced the way that he wrote or his perspective on the world. We know, however, that Euripides, had a difficult married life, unhappy and disappointed by his two wives. But as a critic observed, there may be more to Euripides' sense of tragedy than just his personal failings: But, far deeper than these personal griefs, there lay upon his spirit the constant melancholy of unsolved doubts, of unsettled problems, of seeking for the light in vain, and of hoping against hope for the moral reformation of mankind (Mahaffy, 29) An unhappy personal life is the basis of much tragedy in the world, Euripides nevertheless maintains. In many of his plays, the interplay between men and women indicate how hard it for humans to communicate with one another or understand the predicament that they are in (Croally, 23). This is a powerful theme that runs through many tragedies, including much of Shakespeare's later works. His opinion of women could be classed today as misogynistic, but it carries with it no countervailing chauvinism. The speaker of this speech in Hippolytus is more depressed that the world is constructed this way than he is possessing a visceral hatred of women: O Zeus, why hast thou brought into the world To plague us such a tricksy thing as woman? If thou didst wish to propagate mankind, Couldst thou not find some better way than this? We to the temples might have brought our price In gold or weight of iron or of brass, And purchased offspring, each to the amount Of that which he has paid; and so have dwelt In quiet homes unvexed of womankind. Now, to import a plague into our homes, First of our substance we make sacrifice, And here at once we see what woman is. We see here the sense, that the world is not designed for happiness, but for tedium and difficulty. Little is in the control of humans. Even when they are with the ones that they love, miscommunication and confusion leads to very negative consequences. In order to understand Euripides as a tragedian, we must have some sense of what tragedy is, what it entails (Banham, 32). In its simplest form a tragedy depicts the suffering or downfall of a character in a way that is amusing or instructive to an audience. This is certainly true of all of Euripides' great works. In particular it informs any discussion of the play The Bacchae, which is considered by many critics to be his greatest piece of tragedy. One of his final works, called The Bacchae, demonstrates in a sense the hopelessness of life. Fate is everything, there is no way for a person to break away from the terrible fate that awaits them. All action feeds into tragedy. Confidence, humour, self-belief, each of these affirming qualities will fall to the sword; the fall of people who believe in them will be harder and their belief will expose their foolishness to all. This violent and difficult play has struck a chord with audiences for many years. It does not offer much hope to cling to. Instead it shows the world as not only a hostile place, but a sadistic one too, filled with gods who see people as their playthings. One of the key qualities used in this play is irony. This heightens the drama and helps to keep the audience's attention. Lines such as Dionysus', “It's a wise man's part to practise a smooth-tempered self-control” are clearly intended to be taken as ironic. The confidence and swagger of Pentheus foreshadow to the audience the fact that he will get his comeuppance. The irony becomes shot through with a brutality as Pentheus' mother, in a stupor, carries off his head, thinking it belongs to a mountain lion. This is both ridiculous and truly tragic. It indicates to us that humans have little idea of what is happening around them. This is a key element of tragedy: the confusion and powerlessness of those who are subject to it. In The Bacchae, we see that the gods are all powerful (in other words fate is all powerful) and we resistance to our own fates is useless—it will only cause us humiliation and pain. This is a depressing notion, but it is also a powerful one to consider. Indeed, this is a theme seen throughout Euripides' work. His characters are trapped in situations that are of their own design (Webster, 90). Indeed, the only resolution to the twisted plots of many of his plays comes in the form of outside intervention, often a god entering the stage the resolve the problems that have occurred. To some that suggested a turning away from the best kind of tragedy. Euripides' modernism, however, has outweighed this factor in the mind of many contemporary critics. Euripides is a playwright for all seasons. His work has stood the test of time and ranks as some of the greatest tragedies of all time. He shows us that fate is all, and resistance to our fates, or what the gods have in mind for us, is futile. We must do our best to muddle through life as we can, finding pleasure where we can. Works consulted Banham, Martin, ed. (1998). The Cambridge Guide to Theatre. Cambridge: Cambridge UP. Croally, N. T. (1994). Euripidean Polemic: The Trojan Women and the Function of Tragedy. Cambridge: Cambridge UP. Mahaffy, John. (1879). Euripides. London: Appleton. Pfister, Manfred. (1977). The Theory and Analysis of Drama. Trans. John Halliday. European Studies in English Literature Ser. Cambridige: Cambridge UP, Sommerstein, Alan H. (2002). Greek Drama and Dramatists. London: Routledge. Webster, T. B. L. (1967). The Tragedies of Euripides. London: Methuen. Read More