Book Description

"This book is the first major critical study of three late (and much-maligned) plays of Euripides. It offers a fresh reading of the plays, which has important implications for the way in which we read not only Euripidean tragedy but also tragedy in general. It deliberately reacts against the unexamined preconceptions on which much existing criticism is based. It also argues at length that the escape-tragedies were produced as a thematically connected trilogy in 412 B.C." "The 'escape-tragedies' (Helen, Iphigenia among the Taurians, and the fragmentary Andromeda) have for a long time been neglected or misunderstood. Critics have tended to find them puzzling, unsatisfactory, or even 'un-tragic'. Matthew Wright re-evaluates the escape tragedies and argues that they are to be taken seriously as a major dramatic and intellectual achievement. In particular, he explores exactly what it means to say that a play is, or is not, 'tragic', and assesses the way in which genre affects our understanding of the plays."--Résumé de l'éditeur.