Misery and Forgiveness in Euripides
Meaning and Structure in the Hippolytus
by Boris Nikolsky
Hardback (Published)
(June 2015)
ISBN: 9781910589038
6.1 x 9.17 inches
Price: $80.00
In stock
The tragedies of Euripides are among the most admired works of Greek literature. They are valued especially in our own day for their sceptical attitude to authority and divinity, for their psychological complexity and for their sympathetic but unsentimental portrayal of assertive women. In this striking new monograph, Boris Nikolsky reinterprets a Euripidean tragedy which combines these qualities to the highest degree, the Hippolytus. Nikolsky questions the current gender and psychoanalytical approaches to Hippolytus and challenges the widespread interpretations of the play as being concerned with the irresistible force of love and the inevitability of punishment for those who underestimate its power. He reads the play in terms of its own culture and argues that Euripides’ primary interest lies rather in the sphere of morality. Arguing from the dramatic structure of Hippolytus, its imagery and the problems of its production, the author proposes a new interpretation of the play’s main theme: humans turn out to be not culprits but victims of fate, their will always tends towards virtue, but their natural weakness and the ambivalence of virtue itself lead them to wrong actions. In consequence, it is exoneration and forgiveness that are shown to be the highest and only pure moral values.
Introduction Chapter 1: Involuntary Faults, Exculpation and Forgiveness Chapter 2: Speech and Vision Chapter 3: The Quality of aidos and the Ambivalence of Virtue Chapter 4: The Virtue of Hippolytus and Phaedra Chapter 5: Humans, Gods and the Structure of the Dramatic Conflict Chapter 6: Images of Nature Chapter 7: Scenic and Dramatic Space Notes Acknowledgements Bibliography
- By (author) Boris Nikolsky
Other Titles in this Series
Similar Books
Drunk the Potion, No Whit Charmed
The Doctrine of Pure and Perfect Souls from Iamblichus to Damascius
Epiphanies of the Divine in the Septuagint and the New Testament
Fifth International Symposium of the Corpus Judaeo-Hellenisticum Novi Testamenti (CJHNT), 14-17 May 2015, Nottingham
Language and Power in the Roman Empire and Early India
Hierarchy, Ambiguity, and the Art of Reading the Signs in Cosmopolitan Cultures
Late Antique villae in the Balkans (3rd–7th c. AD): Current Research Questions and Perspectives
HAEMUS Companion to the Late Antique Balkans 1
Volume 4
Nurturing the Elite
Representations of Drinking, Eating, and Religious Vessels in Palmyrene Funerary Iconography
Volume 13
The Compositional History of the Book of Kings
An Analysis of the Evaluative Frameworks in 1 Kings 14–2 Kings 25
Contesting Labeled Identities
The Sociology of Gentilics in Biblical and Northwest Semitic Literature
After Life in Roman Paganism. L’Égypte des astrologues. Les Mages hellénisés
Introductions historiographiques
Volume 7
Diodor über den ersten Sklavenaufstand auf Sizilien
Ein philologischer und historischer Kommentar
Volume 67
Frauen im römischen Erbrecht
Historische Entwicklungen, familiäre Rollenbilder und die erbrechtliche Reskriptenpraxis
Volume 241
Frieden schaffen durch ein gemeinsames Bekenntnis?
Eine Predigtreihe zur Vergegenwärtigung des Nizänischen Glaubensbekenntnises von 325
Volume 7
I Germani e l’Impero Romano. Storia e diritti
Saggi delle edizioni degli incontri 2024-2025
Volume 14
Nach der Zerstörung
Die gewaltsame Einnahme von Städten von der Antike bis zum 20. Jahrhundert zwischen Disruption und Kontinuität
Religiöse Erfahrung in Korinth
Paulus und die frühchristliche Bewegung im Kontext ihrer griechisch-römischen Erfahrungswelt
But the Wise Shall Understand
Reuse of Prophecies, Chronotope, and Merging of Eschatological Horizons in Daniel 10-12
