General Introduction
– What is a triptych, anyway?
– We stand outside of time
– What’s on the blog?
Euripides the Man
– What do we know?
– Making fun of Euripides
– Misogynist
– Troubled loner
– The “happy plays”
Hippolytus
– His unfortunate story
– Other sources for the myth
– Euripides’ first version
– Those amoral gods!
– Who’s really to blame here?
The Deus Ex Machina
– Petty yet ultimately vindictive behavior
– Aphrodite as metaphor
– Being kind to Aphrodite
Hippolytus’ Suffering
– For what does he suffer?
– Plato’s criticism of Euripides
– The realistic turn
– Absence of hamartia
– Hippolytus’ modern heirs
– Immoderate celibacy
– Misogyny
Medea
– Her long, troubled fate
– Never give a witch an inch
– Is she a proto-feminist or a monster?
– Medea’s original reception
– Rapidly changing characters
– Aegeus’s cameo
– How does it compare to Seneca’s version?
Euripides’ Influence
– Medea as godly woman
– Euripides and Paul’s advice
– The dark side of paganism
– Melville’s quarrel
GENERAL INTRODUCTION
Aristophanes. The Frogs and Other Plays. Trans. Shomit Dutta. New York: Penguin, 2007.
Aristotle. Trans. Joe Sachs. Newburyport, Mass.: Focus, 2005.
Chaucer, Geoffrey. The Canterbury Tales. New York: Norton, 2005.
Euripides. Alcestis and Other Plays. Trans. Philip Vellacott. New York: Penguin, 1974.
—. Medea and Other Plays. Trans. John Davie. New York: Penguin, 2003.
McIntyre, Alasdair. A Short History of Ethics: A History of Moral Philosophy from the Homeric Age to the Twentieth Century. South Bend, Ind.: U of Notre Dame P, 1998.
Melville, Herman. Pierre; or, the Ambiguities. New York: Penguin, 1996.
Miller, Arthur. Death of a Salesman. New York: Penguin, 1998.
Murray, Gilbert. Euripides and His Age. Toronto: U of Toronto P, 2011.
Ovid. Heroides. Trans. Harold Isbell. New York: Penguin, 1990.
Plato. Phaedrus. Trans. Alexander Nehamas and Paul Woodruff. New York: Hackett, 1995.
—. Republic. Trans. Allan Bloom. New York: Basic, 1991.
Seneca. Six Tragedies. Trans. Emily Wilson. New York: Oxford UP, 2010.
Shakespeare, William. Macbeth. New York: Arden, 1997.
“This is a podcast, not a dramatic reenactment.”
Actually, that’s not a bad idea. Once in a while, y’all could mount a three-man dramatic reading and post it as a podcast. I’m listening to Beowulf on tape (that’s right, actual audiotape), and it would be nice to listen to a classic piece done by someone other than a stuffy boring British voice-guy.
We’ll think of that, but I remember hearing a couple philosophy professors from University of Kentucky doing Platonic dialogues, and it really wasn’t as good as the voices that speak in my head when I read silently.
Another random thought (this is what I get for posting comments while listening to the podcast at the same time) on modern reappearance of characters being tragically crushed by capricious reality. Many of your students will be familiar with the Cohen brothers films, in which this theme is hammered hard right between the audiences’ eyes, especially in No Country for Old Men.
Have you listened to our episode on Tragedy as a movie genre from a while back? We dig into Cohen movies as well as HBO’s The Wire and the Godfather films. If you’ve not listened yet, I think you’ll dig it.
Just looked it up… it’s episode number 12, from February 2010.
I didn’t start regularly listening until early summer of 2010, so I’ll have to look that one up. Thanks.
Let us know what you think!