Catastrophe Survived: Euripides' Play of Mixed Reversal

By Anne Pippin Burnett

Book Overview

Examining the seven Euripidean tragicomdeies, this book contends that the plays' plots--compounded as they are of the opposite elements of good fortune and catastrophe--result from experimentation with a new form intended to express a characteristically Euripidean view of reality. The plays involve people scaled for comedy trying to live in a world ruled by the gods of tragedy, making efforts sometimes noble, sometimes sordid, but in the end, essentially futile. Burnett shows how Euripides manipulates tradtional scenes, diverting and frustrating the expectations aroused in his audience and transforming their simple pity and terror into a response that is conscious, complex, and inescapably disturbing.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 019814038X
• ISBN13: 9780198140382
• Release Date: June 1985
• Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
• Length: 244 Pages
• Weight: 0.75 lbs.