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Structure and Dramatic Realism in Euripides' Heracles*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  07 September 2009

Shirley A. Barlow
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Extract

The Heracles as Euripides' other middle plays has not escaped censure for its faulty structure. From Swinburne's judgement of it as a ‘grotesque abortion’ one comes to Norwood who says of Gilbert Murray's view ‘A great Hellenist who is the last man to hunt for blemishes in Euripides has rightly called Heracles “broken-backed”’, and he adds himself that the play ‘at best must be called ramshackle work’ or ‘The action falls into 2 halves visibly separate though tied together. In each instance a champion of the poet if ingenious and resolute enough can devise some statement that will force unity of action upon his recalcitrant material, but the mere fact that he must so labour refutes him’.

Type
Research Article
Information
Greece & Rome , Volume 29 , Issue 2 , October 1982 , pp. 115 - 125
Copyright
Copyright © The Classical Association 1982

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References

Notes

1. Quoted by Verrall, A. W. in Four Plays of Euripides (Cambridge, 1905)Google Scholar.

2. Norwood, G., Essays on Euripidean Drama (Berkeley, London, and Toronto, 1964), pp. 46, 47Google Scholar.

3. Kitto, H. D. F., Greek Tragedy (London, 1961 3), p. 235Google Scholar.

4. Lee, K., Vindex Humanitatis, Essays in Honour of John Huntley Bishop (Armidale, N.S.W.), p. 34Google Scholar.

5. Conacher, D. J., Euripidean Drama (Toronto and London, 1967), p. 83Google Scholar.

6. von Wilamowitz-Moellendorf, U., Euripides' Herakles (Berlin, 1895), p. 128Google Scholar.

7. Chalk, H. H. O. Ἀρετ⋯ and Β⋯α in Euripides' Herakles', JHS 82 (1962), 7 ffCrossRefGoogle Scholar.

8. Kamerbeek, J. C., ‘The Unity and Meaning of Euripides’ Heracles', Mnemosyne 19 (1966), 1 ffCrossRefGoogle Scholar.

9. Sheppard, J. T., ‘The Formal Beauty of the Hercules Furens’, CQ 10 (1916), 72 ffCrossRefGoogle Scholar.

10. Gregory, J., ‘Euripides’ Heracles', YCS 25 (1977), 259 ffGoogle Scholar.

11. Arrowsmith, W., Introduction to the Heracles, Euripides II (Chicago U.P., 1956), pp. 45–6Google Scholar.

12. Arrowsmith, W., The Conversion of Heracles (Diss. Princeton, Princeton U.P., 1954)Google Scholar.

13. Compare for example Seneca's presentation of the ghosts of monsters in the Underworld and of Cerberus (HF 778–806) where verbs work with adjectives to create the impression of energy (territat, lambunt, horrent, sibilat) and where Heracles is shown in motion as he puts on the lion skin and whirls his club. Or compare the fragment of Pindar (P. Oxy. 2450) which describes some of the labours of Heracles where much of the force is expressed through strong epic-type verbs, e.g. ⋯ρ⋯βη[σε] σι⋯ [λ] ευκ⋯ν0|⋯στ⋯[ων] δο⋯πος ⋯[ρ]εικομ⋯νων.

14. As frequently in Pindar, e.g. Nem. 1.33 ff., 4.30 ff.

15. As for instance in Heracles’ words about his labours in Sophocles Track. 1088 ff.

16. Wilamowitz, , Herakles III, p. 84Google Scholar ‘Das ganze Lied ist in der Form von aischyleischer Fülle and Erhabenheit.’ There are glyconic refrains in common between this ode & Aesch Ag. 367–488, and Supp. 630–709 but it is hard to see any further resemblance between the highly complicated language, thought, and content of Aeschylus' odes and the simpler descriptive narrative of Euripides' first stasimon here.

17. Bacchylides XVI (the Theseus dithyramb) is characterized by many colourful compound adjectives, see for example the first few lines κυαν⋯πῳρα, τηλαυγε⋯, πολεμα⋯γιδος, ἱμερ⋯μπυκος, χαλκοθώρακα and by colour contrasts e.g. λευκâν παρη⋯δων, μ⋯λαν…⋯μμα Lines 90 ff. involve a journey where pictorially descriptive elements prevail e.g. 103 ff. The eleven lines of fragment XIX are similarly dominated by colourful compound adjectives.

18. See the somewhat languid and relaxed poses of Heracles on some late fifth-century vases as illustrated by Brommer, Herakles, particularly tafs. 29 and 30.

19. At 151 ff.

20. At 1250, 1270 ff., 1376 ff., 1410 ff.

21. There is an early messenger speech in the I.T. for example at 260 ff.

22. Especially Troades 1061 ff., 824 ff.

23. e.g. at 662, 777 ff.; 1102.

24. Op. cit. (n. 12), p. 12.

25. Only the messenger speeches in the Bacchae are comparable in that they give an account of a whole phenomenon – the Dionysiac experience.

26. There is surely ambiguity here since ⋯κπον⋯ω can mean ‘execute’ their death as well as ‘work to take it away’.

27. This is the subject of another work in progress.