Book contents
- Monody in Euripides
- Monody in Euripides
- Copyright page
- Dedication
- Contents
- Acknowledgments
- Note on Editions and Translations
- Introduction
- 1 Ion
- 2 Iphigenia among the Taurians
- 3 Phoenician Women
- 4 Orestes
- Conclusion
- Appendix Actor’s Song in the Extant Plays of Aeschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides
- References
- Index
4 - Orestes
Monody As Messenger Speech
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 27 July 2023
- Monody in Euripides
- Monody in Euripides
- Copyright page
- Dedication
- Contents
- Acknowledgments
- Note on Editions and Translations
- Introduction
- 1 Ion
- 2 Iphigenia among the Taurians
- 3 Phoenician Women
- 4 Orestes
- Conclusion
- Appendix Actor’s Song in the Extant Plays of Aeschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides
- References
- Index
Summary
Euripides’ Orestes, produced in 408 BCE, stands as the culmination of a decade of experimentation with monody as a versatile dramatic form. At the climax of the play, the disappearance of Helen is reported not by a messenger in an iambic rhesis, but by an anonymous Phrygian slave in a virtuosic monody that is twice as long as all the combined songs of the chorus. The tonal and rhetorical ambiguities in the Phrygian’s song underscore the increasing fragmentation and chaos of the plot. This monody overturns the expectations of the audience through its combination of the traditionally antithetical genres of monody and messenger speech. The Phrygian is an unprecedented type of narrator in tragedy, offering instead of an objective reporting of events a “polyphonic” account that draws on multiple genres and styles.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- Monody in EuripidesCharacter and the Liberation of Form in Late Greek Tragedy, pp. 157 - 186Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2023