Euripides Support of Women’s Rights Essay -- Biography Biographies Ess

Euripides Support of Womens Rights One can hardly discard that in Euripides plays women are often portrayed as weak, uncertain, and torn in the midst of what they must do and what they can bring themselves to do. Other women appear to be the root of grave evils, or simply perpetrators of heinous crimes. In a day when analysis of characters and plot had yet to be invented, it is easy to come upon why he might have been thought to be really much against women. However, when looking back with current see to iting of what Euripides was doing at the time, fortify with knowledge of plot devices and Socratic philosophy, this argument simply does not digest up. In fact, a very strong argument can be made to the opposite, that Euripides was in fact very much in complement of womens rights, and thought they were treated unfairly. To begin to understand what Euripides was doing, it is best to understand the medium of his cheat the classic theater. Theater was a competitive art amo ng playwrights, with several competitions throughout the year, the greatest of which was at the Dionysian festivals in the spring. Greek drama, tragedy in particular, had little in common with modern acting productions. There was little or no suspense as to the way out of the play most all were based on Homeric tales from The Iliad and The Odyssey. The skill, therefore, was not in creating a fascinating plot, but in the subtle changes the playwright could incorporate to increase the dramatic effect. Changing the reasons for conflicts, dialogue, order of yetts, and sometimes even the outcome of the play were all ways to do this. With all these devices usable to the fifth century playwright, what made Euripides so special that he was just about exclusiv... ...Euripides. Medea. Trans. Paul Roche. New York Norton, 1974. Euripides. The Bacchae. Trans. Paul Roche. New York Norton, 1974. Euripides. Andromache. Trans. John McLean. New York operate Press, 1936. Euripides. Hippolytos. Trans. John McLean. New York telephone dial Press, 1936. Euripides. Trojan Women. Trans. John McLean. New York Dial Press, 1936. Euripides. Electra. Trans. John McLean. New York Dial Press, 1936. Nietzsche, Friedrich. The Birth of Tragedy. Trans. Clifton Fadiman. New York Dover Publications, 1995. Perseus Encyclopedia. revise 1999. Tufts University. www.perseus.tufts.edu/cgi-bin/encyclopedia?entry=Euripides. Powell, Anton, ed. Euripides, Women, and Sexuality. New York Routledge, 1990. March, Jennifer. Euripides the Mysogynist? Euripides, Women, and Sexuality. Ed. Anton Powell. New York Routledge, 1990.