Euripides Our Contemporary

In this accessible and beautifully written study of Euripides, the first study of all the plays of Euripides for thirty years, J. Michael Walton provides a wide-ranging appreciation of the playwright’s entire canon. Euripides Our Contemporary treats these ancient dramas as vital engagements with issues of a moral, social, psychological, and political nature, as significant today as when the works were first performed. Walton moves with expert familiarity through all the plays, emphasizing what Euripides might have to say to us as our “contemporary.” The book considers how Euripides finds parallels to ordinary life in the world of myth, how characters behave under extraordinary pressure and how personal responsibility may be absolved by circumstance, and discusses the nature of his theater, the great roles, and the playwrights most influenced by his work.