Euripides’s Followers (2,081)

Euripides

Born

Salamis, Greece

Genre

Theatre, Poetry, Classics

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Euripides (Greek: Ευριπίδης) (ca. 480 BC–406 BC) 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 (Rhesus is suspect). There are many fragments (some substantial) 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.
Eur Euripides (Greek: Ευριπίδης) (ca. 480 BC–406 BC) 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 (Rhesus is suspect). There are many fragments (some substantial) 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.
Euripides is identified with theatrical innovations that have profoundly influenced drama down to modern times, especially in the representation of traditional, mythical heroes as ordinary people in extraordinary circumstances. This new approach led him to pioneer developments that later writers adapted to comedy, some of which are characteristic of romance. He also became "the most tragic of poets", focusing on the inner lives and motives of his characters in a way previously unknown. He was "the creator of ... that cage which is the theatre of William Shakespeare's Othello, Jean Racine's Phèdre, of Henrik Ibsen and August Strindberg," in which "imprisoned men and women destroy each other by the intensity of their loves and hates". But he was also the literary ancestor of comic dramatists as diverse as Menander and George Bernard Shaw.
His contemporaries associated him with Socrates as a leader of a decadent intellectualism. Both were frequently lampooned by comic poets such as Aristophanes. Socrates was eventually put on trial and executed as a corrupting influence. Ancient biographies hold that Euripides chose a voluntary exile in old age, dying in Macedonia, but recent scholarship casts doubt on these sources. ...more

Combine Editions
Euripides’s books

Average rating: 3.97 · 243,942 ratings · 15,343 reviews · 2,896 distinct works • Similar authors

	Medea 3.96 avg rating — 89,659 ratings — published -431 — 1000 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	The Bacchae 3.94 avg rating — 26,151 ratings — published -405 — 387 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Medea and Other Plays by Euripides, Richard Rutherford (Editor), John Davie (Translator) 4.03 avg rating — 19,603 ratings — published -428 — 26 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	The Trojan Women 3.89 avg rating — 13,200 ratings — published -415 — 238 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Electra 3.95 avg rating — 8,670 ratings — published -420 — 237 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	The Bacchae and Other Plays by Euripides, Philip Vellacott (Translator) 4.14 avg rating — 6,851 ratings — published -414 — 76 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Hippolytos by Euripides, Robert Bagg (Goodreads Author) (Translator) 3.81 avg rating — 7,187 ratings — published -428 — 393 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Iphigenia in Aulis (Plays for Performance Series) 4.02 avg rating — 6,652 ratings — published -405 — 271 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Alcestis 3.86 avg rating — 5,369 ratings — published -438 — 564 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Euripides V: Electra / The Phoenician Women / The Bacchae by Euripides, Emily Townsend Vermeule (Introduction), Elizabeth Wyckoff (Introduction) 4.18 avg rating — 3,993 ratings — published 1922 — 16 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars

More books by Euripides…

Series by Euripides

Théâtre d'Euripide et fragments (1 book)
by

Euripides,

Gustave Hinstin (Translator)

3.80 avg rating — 5 ratings

The minds of authors can be mysterious places. How do they come up with all those plot twists? What inspired them to create their most beloved...

Polls

October 2023 Old School Classics Poll

The Aeneid by Virgil, 20, 297pp

57 votes, 35.8%

Eugénie Grandet by Honoré de Balzac, 1833, 240pp

25 votes, 15.7%

The Phoenician Women by Euripides, 411, 112 pp

22 votes, 13.8%

The Leavenworth Case by Anna Katharine Green, 1878, 439pp

20 votes, 12.6%

Everyman by Unknown, 1485, 52pp

12 votes, 7.5%

The Witlingsby Frances Burney, 1779, 165pp

12 votes, 7.5%

The Crime of Father Amaro by Eça de Queirós, 1875, 471pp

11 votes, 6.9%

159 total votes

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