Anglický jazyk

Euripides and His Age

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Excerpt: ...IN ATHENS: FROM THE "IPHIGENIA" TO THE "ORESTES" Critics have used various words to describe the change of mood which followed the Trojan Women. They speak of a period of despair, pessimism, progressive bitterness, Verzweiflung und Weltschmertz. But such phrases seem to me misleading. In the first place I do not think they describe quite truly even the particular plays they are meant to describe; in the second, they do not allow for the great variety which subsists in the plays of this period. The mood of the Trojan Women is not exactly pessimism or despair; and whatever it is, it does not colour all the subsequent plays. The plays after 415 fall into two main divisions. First the works of pure fancy or romance, in which the poet seems to turn intentionally away from reality. Such are the Iphigenîa in Tauris, the Helena and the Pg 143 Andromeda; they move among far seas and strange adventures and they have happy endings. Next there are the true tragedies, close to life, ruthlessly probing the depths of human nature; not more acutely bitter than such earlier works as the Medea and Hecuba, but with a bitterness more profound because it is comparatively free from indignation. The glory has fallen away and the burning anger with it. The poor miserable heroes and heroines . . . what else can you expect of them? Rage is no good; punishment worse than useless. The road to healing lies elsewhere. A good key to the first of these types of play is to be seen in Aristophanes' comedy, The Birds. The gayest, sweetest and most irresponsible of all his plays, it was written just after the news of the final disaster in Sicily, when ruin stared Athens in the face. And the two heroes of it, disgusted with the ways of man, depart to live among the birds and build, with their help, a splendid Cloud City. In much the same spirit Euripides must have written his Andromeda. He produced it in 412, the same year in which he was invited by the anti-war government which...