Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-xbtfd Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-05T16:26:57.259Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

The Madmen of the Greek Theatre

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  19 February 2018

Extract

The most perfect specimens of the Greek drama which time has spared to us, the tragedies of Sophocles now extant, contain, unfortunately, little to my purpose. We shall hereafter see that those plays have been unfortunately lost in which insanity must have been a prominent feature; but it also seems likely that Sophocles was intentionally sparing in his introduction of madness on the stage. We have had one instance of this in the case of Orestes, who is the most prominent mad hero of Æschylus and Euripides, and yet is portrayed by Sophocles as perfectly sane; and the story of Hercules, in its different treatment by Sophocles and Euripides, is another example.

Type
Part 1.—Original Articles
Copyright
Copyright © Royal College of Psychiatrists, 1873 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)
Submit a response

eLetters

No eLetters have been published for this article.