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Intent And Method: A Study Of Female Characters In Aeschylean And Euripidean Drama, Elizabeth H. Strafaci
Intent And Method: A Study Of Female Characters In Aeschylean And Euripidean Drama, Elizabeth H. Strafaci
Senior Scholar Papers
Aeschylus and Euripides used tragic female characters to help fulfill the purpose of religious celebration and to achieve the motivation of public reaction. The playwrights, revising myths about tragic woman and redefining the Greek definition of appropriate femininity, supported or questioned the very customs which they changed. Originally composed as part of a religious festival for Dionysus, the god of wine, revelry and fertility, the tragedies of Aeschylus and Euripides were evaluated by Aristotle. He favored Aeschylus over Euripides, but it appears as if his stipulations for tragic characterization do not apply to Aeschylean and Euripidean women. Modem critics question …