Euripides, Heracles

David Kovacs (University of Virginia)

Ed. by Vaios Liapis, Open University of Cyprus
The Literary Encyclopedia. Volume 1.1.1: Greek Writing and Culture: Archaic, Classical, Hellenistic and Imperial, -800--100.
Vol. editors: Jonathan Burgess (University of Toronto), Giacomo Fedeli (University of Exeter), Emily Kneebone (University of Nottingham), Vaios Liapis (Open University of Cyprus), Elodie Paillard (University of Sydney), Mali Skotheim (Ashoka University), Laura Swift (The Open University)

Dates

First circulation or publication c. -416

Places

Ancient Greece (Country of Origin)

Genres and Modes

Play
Tragedy

Resources

Euripides’ Heracles, produced ca. 416 B. C., is like several of his plays (e.g. Andromache) double in its plot in that it portrays two reversals of fortune, one in each direction. The play’s initial action results in a change from bad to good fortune when Heracles rescues his wife and children, while the second, where he murders them in a fit of god-sent madness, takes him from happiness to misery. The play thus expresses the archaic Greek theme of the fragility of human happiness and the impossibility of foreseeing the future. Many Greek myths make the point that not even the greatest of men (Achilles, for example, or Heracles) can escape the vulnerability of the mortal state. This is one of the great themes of …

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1612 words

Citation: Kovacs, David. "Heracles". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 10 March 2011 [https://staging.litencyc.com/php/sworks.php?rec=true&UID=32955, accessed 24 November 2024.]

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