Patrick O’Sullivan and Christopher Collard (eds)
- Published in print:
- 2013
- Published Online:
- February 2021
- ISBN:
- 9781908343352
- eISBN:
- 9781800342682
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Liverpool University Press
- DOI:
- 10.3828/liverpool/9781908343352.003.0003
- Subject:
- Classical Studies, Plays and Playwrights: Classical, Early, and Medieval
This chapter offers a Greek text and a modestly annotated translation of the more substantial fragmentary plays of Euripides. It explores single fragments of varying length that is important for ...
More
This chapter offers a Greek text and a modestly annotated translation of the more substantial fragmentary plays of Euripides. It explores single fragments of varying length that is important for satyric drama as a whole and other fragments that are interesting because their attribution to the genre is disputed. It also analyses the complete Cyclops examples of other satyric plots and of satyric themes, motifs, topics, and styles in general. The chapter reviews all the major fragments that have been recovered on papyrus, including those of Aeschylus and Sophocles that have transformed common knowledge of the satyric genre. It probes a certain fragment from Pratinas' thirty-two plays known to antiquity and scattered fragments from the seven or more of Achaeus, who is also famous for his satyr plays.Less
This chapter offers a Greek text and a modestly annotated translation of the more substantial fragmentary plays of Euripides. It explores single fragments of varying length that is important for satyric drama as a whole and other fragments that are interesting because their attribution to the genre is disputed. It also analyses the complete Cyclops examples of other satyric plots and of satyric themes, motifs, topics, and styles in general. The chapter reviews all the major fragments that have been recovered on papyrus, including those of Aeschylus and Sophocles that have transformed common knowledge of the satyric genre. It probes a certain fragment from Pratinas' thirty-two plays known to antiquity and scattered fragments from the seven or more of Achaeus, who is also famous for his satyr plays.
Frisbee C. C. Sheffield
- Published in print:
- 2006
- Published Online:
- September 2007
- ISBN:
- 9780199286775
- eISBN:
- 9780191713194
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199286775.003.0007
- Subject:
- Classical Studies, Ancient Greek, Roman, and Early Christian Philosophy
This chapter explores a further issue that arises from Socrates' account of how our desire for happiness is best satisfied: to what extent is it a human life that he advocates? It argues that ...
More
This chapter explores a further issue that arises from Socrates' account of how our desire for happiness is best satisfied: to what extent is it a human life that he advocates? It argues that Alcibaides, who arrives late to Agathon's symposium, provides the answer to this question in the final speech of the dialogue. This speech explores Socrates' apparently hubristic disdain of the world of human affairs, but Alcibiades' ‘satyric drama’, as Socrates calls it, does not undermine the account of philosophical eros and virtue, as it is sometimes held. Although Alcibiades shows that ways in which philosophical eros is misunderstood — to much comic effect — he also shows that the philosopher is deeply engaged in the world of human affairs.Less
This chapter explores a further issue that arises from Socrates' account of how our desire for happiness is best satisfied: to what extent is it a human life that he advocates? It argues that Alcibaides, who arrives late to Agathon's symposium, provides the answer to this question in the final speech of the dialogue. This speech explores Socrates' apparently hubristic disdain of the world of human affairs, but Alcibiades' ‘satyric drama’, as Socrates calls it, does not undermine the account of philosophical eros and virtue, as it is sometimes held. Although Alcibiades shows that ways in which philosophical eros is misunderstood — to much comic effect — he also shows that the philosopher is deeply engaged in the world of human affairs.
Patrick O'Sullivan and C. Collard (eds)
- Published in print:
- 2013
- Published Online:
- February 2021
- ISBN:
- 9781908343352
- eISBN:
- 9781800342682
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Liverpool University Press
- DOI:
- 10.3828/liverpool/9781908343352.001.0001
- Subject:
- Classical Studies, Plays and Playwrights: Classical, Early, and Medieval
Satyric is the most thinly attested genre of Greek drama, but it appears to have been the oldest and, according to Aristotle, formative for tragedy. By the 5th century BC at Athens, it shared most of ...
More
Satyric is the most thinly attested genre of Greek drama, but it appears to have been the oldest and, according to Aristotle, formative for tragedy. By the 5th century BC at Athens, it shared most of its compositional elements with tragedy, to which it became an adjunct; for at the annual great dramatic festivals, it was performed only together with, and after, the three tragedies which each poet was required to present in competition. It was in contrast with them. Euripides' Cyclops is the only satyr play which survives complete. Its title alone signals its content, Odysseus' escape from the one-eyed, man-eating monster, familiar from Book 9 of Homer's Odyssey. Because of its uniqueness, Cyclops could afford only a limited idea of satyric drama's range, which the many but brief quotations from other authors and plays barely coloured. Our knowledge and appreciation of the genre have been greatly enlarged, however, by recovery since the early 20th century of considerable fragments of Aeschylus, Euripides' predecessor, and of Sophocles, his contemporary — but not, so far, of Euripides himself. This book provides English readers for the first time with all the most important texts of satyric drama, with facing-page translation, substantial introduction and detailed commentary. It includes not only the major papyri, but very many shorter fragments of importance, both on papyrus and in quotation, from the 5th to the 3rd centuries; there are also one or two texts whose interest lies in their problematic ascription to the genre at all. The intention is to illustrate it as fully as practicable.Less
Satyric is the most thinly attested genre of Greek drama, but it appears to have been the oldest and, according to Aristotle, formative for tragedy. By the 5th century BC at Athens, it shared most of its compositional elements with tragedy, to which it became an adjunct; for at the annual great dramatic festivals, it was performed only together with, and after, the three tragedies which each poet was required to present in competition. It was in contrast with them. Euripides' Cyclops is the only satyr play which survives complete. Its title alone signals its content, Odysseus' escape from the one-eyed, man-eating monster, familiar from Book 9 of Homer's Odyssey. Because of its uniqueness, Cyclops could afford only a limited idea of satyric drama's range, which the many but brief quotations from other authors and plays barely coloured. Our knowledge and appreciation of the genre have been greatly enlarged, however, by recovery since the early 20th century of considerable fragments of Aeschylus, Euripides' predecessor, and of Sophocles, his contemporary — but not, so far, of Euripides himself. This book provides English readers for the first time with all the most important texts of satyric drama, with facing-page translation, substantial introduction and detailed commentary. It includes not only the major papyri, but very many shorter fragments of importance, both on papyrus and in quotation, from the 5th to the 3rd centuries; there are also one or two texts whose interest lies in their problematic ascription to the genre at all. The intention is to illustrate it as fully as practicable.
