Folio Fiction Discussion Group: Medea - Euripides

Folio's Fiction book discussion group features a list of classic fiction, curated and led by Folio Librarian Lillian Dabney.

Euripides was one of the most popular and controversial of all Greek tragedians, and his plays are marked by an independence of thought, ingenious dramatic devices, and a subtle variety of register and mood. He is also remarkable for the prominence he gave to female characters, whether heroines of virtue or vice. This new translation does full justice to Euripides's range of tone and gift of narrative. A lucid introduction provides substantial analysis of each play, complete with vital explanations of the traditions and background to Euripides's world.

Euripides was a tragedian of classical Athens and one of the few whose plays have survived, Some ancient scholars attributed 95 plays to him but according to the Suda it was 92 at most. Of these, 18 or 19 have survived more or less complete. He is credited with theatrical innovations that have profoundly influenced drama down to modern times, especially in the representation of mythical heroes as ordinary people in extraordinary circumstances. He was also considered "the most tragic of poets", focusing on the inner lives and motives of his characters in a way previously unheard of. He was "the creator of...that cage which is the theatre of Shakespeare's Othello, Racine's Phèdre, of Ibsen and Strindberg," in which "...imprisoned men and women destroy each other by the intensity of their loves and hates". However, he was also the literary ancestor of comic dramatists as diverse as Menander and George Bernard Shaw.

Edith Hall is Professor of Classics at King's College London, and Consultant Director of the Archive of Performances of Greek and Roman Drama in Oxford, UK. She has published more than twenty books on ancient Greek culture and its reception including The Return of Ulysses (2008), Greek Tragedy (2010), Adventures with Iphigenia in Tauris (2013) and Introducing the Ancient Greeks (2015).