Euripides: Ion

Up-to-date edition of one of Euripides' most appealing plays, exploring language, style, meter, dramatic technique, myth, religion, politics, and society.

Euripides (Author), John C. Gibert (Edited by)

9780521593618, Cambridge University Press

Hardback, published 17 October 2019

386 pages
22.3 x 14.2 x 2.1 cm, 0.63 kg

'… tactful, packed with insights and ideas that will generate insight and ideas in any careful reader.' Gregory Crane, Bryn Mawr Classical Review

Ion is one of Euripides' most appealing and inventive plays. With its story of an anonymous temple slave discovered to be the son of Apollo and Creusa, an Athenian princess, it is a rare example of Athenian myth dramatized for the Athenian stage. It explores the Delphic Oracle and Greek piety; the Athenian ideology of autochthony and empire; and the tragic suffering and longing of the mythical foundling and his mother, whose experiences are represented uniquely in surviving Greek literature. The plot anticipates later Greek comedy, while the recognition scene builds on a tradition founded by Homer's Odyssey and Aeschylus' Oresteia. The introduction sets out the main issues in interpretation and discusses the play's contexts in myth, religion, law, politics, and society. By attending to language, style, meter, and dramatic technique, this edition with its detailed commentary makes Ion accessible to students, scholars, and readers of Greek at all levels.

Introduction
1. Euripides: life and works
2. Myth
3. Setting, staging, and production
4. Structure and dramatic technique
5. The Chorus and the characters
6. Political identity
7. Ritual and religion
8. Revelation and deception
9. Genre and tone
10. Transmission of the text
A note on the text and critical apparatus
Ion
Commentary.

Subject Areas: Classical history / classical civilisation [HBLA1], Literary studies: poetry & poets [DSC], Literary studies: classical, early & medieval [DSBB], Language [C]