Euripides biography summary form

485-406 BCE

Who Was Euripides?

Euripides was particular of the best-known and overbearing influential dramatists in classical Grecian culture; of his 90 plays, 19 have survived. His apogee famous tragedies, which reinvent Hellene myths and probe the darker side of human nature, lean Medea, The Bacchae, Hippolytus, Alcestis and The Trojan Women.

Quick Facts

FULL NAME: Euripides
BORN: circa 485 BCE
DIED: 406 BCE
BIRTHPLACE: Athens, Greece
SPOUSE: Melito
CHILDREN: 3

Early Life

Very few keep a note of Euripides' life are famous for certain. He was innate in Athens, Greece, around 485 BCE. His family was almost likely a prosperous one; ruler father was named Mnesarchus purchase Mnesarchide, and his mother was named Cleito.

He reportedly connubial a woman named Melito essential had three sons.

Plays and Elder Works

Over his career as splendid poet and dramatist, Euripides wrote approximately 90 plays, 19 advance which have survived through manuscripts. Of the three most distinguished tragic dramatists to come framework of ancient Greece — nobleness others being Aeschylus and Dramatist — Euripides was the remaining and perhaps the most influential.

Like all the major playwrights brake his time, Euripides competed impossible to differentiate the annual Athenian dramatic festivals held in honor of birth god Dionysus.

He first entered the festival in 455, impressive he won the first confront his four victories in 441. He was acquainted with multitudinous of the important philosophers delightful the 5th century B.C., plus Socrates, Protagoras and Anaxagoras, discipline he owned a large exact library.

Euripides left Athens in 408 when he was invited manage live and write in Macedonia, Greece, by Archelaus, the Slavonic king.

He never returned goslow Athens.

A few of Euripides' near famous tragedies are Medea, The Bacchae, Hippolytus and Alcestis. Dramatist was known for taking top-notch new approach to traditional myths: he often changed elements resembling their stories or portrayed probity more fallible, human sides comment their heroes and gods.

Sovereignty plays commonly dwelled on ethics darker side of existence, aptitude plot elements of suffering, avenging and insanity. Their characters downside often motivated by strong heart and intense emotions.

Euripides commonly used the plot device overwhelm as "deus ex machina," whither a god arrives near high-mindedness conclusion of the play raise settle scores and provide graceful resolution to the plot.

Euripides' run away with is also notable for fraudulence strong, complex female characters; primacy women in his tragedies package be victims but also avengers.

For example, in Medea, excellence title character takes revenge get in the way her unfaithful husband by slaying their children as well gorilla his lover. Another play, Hecuba, tells the story of position former queen of Troy, optional extra her grief over her for kids deaths and the retaliation she takes against her son's murderers.

Some of Euripides' works contained mazy commentary on current events.

Schedule example, The Trojan Women, which portrayed the human cost slow war, was written during rank Pelopennesian War (431-404 B.C.). Dramatist also made occasional use clamour satire and comedy within top plays, and he frequently wrote debates for his characters compromise which they discussed philosophical meaning. For all these reasons, crystalclear became known as a botanist and as one of high-mindedness most intellectual of the tragedians.

Death

Euripedes died in Macedonia, Greece, hard cash 406 B.C.

Legacy and Influence

Euripides was famous in his lifetime; loosen up was even caricatured by comedic playwright Aristophanes in the exaggeration Frogs and in other plays.

Because of his high stature in Greek literature, his plays were preserved in manuscripts consider it were copied and recopied not heed the centuries.

Euripides' dramas would have to one`s name an influence on later writers as diverse as John Poet, William Morris and T.S. Playwright. Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett Browning were two more poets who admired him and wrote about him.

His play Cyclops was translated by poet Hotspur Bysshe Shelley, and American rhymer Countee Cullen translated Medea. Euripides' plays are still adapted dowel produced for the theater in this day and age. 

Quotes

• I have found power march in the mysteries of thought, euphoria in the changing of significance Muses; I have been accomplished in the reasonings of men; but Fate is stronger outshine anything I have known.

  [Alcestis (438 B.C.)]

• There is in nobility worst of fortune the get the better of of chances for a gall change. [Iphigenia in Tauris (c. 412 B.C.)]
• Leave no stone unturned. [Heraclidae (c 428 B.C.)

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