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Euripides

Writer, Additional Credits
Euripides (c. 480 – c. 406 BC) was a Greek tragedian of classical Athens. Along with Aeschylus and Sophocles, he is one of the three ancient Greek tragedians for whom any plays have survived in full. Some ancient scholars attributed ninety-five plays to him, but the Suda says it was ninety-two at most. Of these, eighteen or nineteen have survived more or less complete (Rhesus is suspect). There are many fragments (some substantial) of most of his other plays. More of his plays have survived intact than those of Aeschylus and Sophocles together, partly because his popularity grew as theirs declined — he became, in the Hellenistic Age, a cornerstone of ancient literary education, along with Homer, Demosthenes, and Menander.

Euripides is identified with theatrical innovations that have profoundly influenced drama down to modern times, especially in the representation of traditional, mythical heroes as ordinary people in extraordinary circumstances. This new approach led him to pioneer developments that later writers adapted to comedy, some of which are characteristic of romance. He also became "the most tragic of poets",[nb 1] focusing on the inner lives and motives of his characters in a way previously unknown. He was "the creator of ... that cage which is the theatre of Shakespeare's Othello, Racine's Phèdre, of Ibsen and Strindberg," in which "imprisoned men and women destroy each other by the intensity of their loves and hates". But he was also the literary ancestor of comic dramatists as diverse as Menander and George Bernard Shaw.

Known among the writers of classical Athens for his unparalleled sympathy towards all victims of society, including women, slaves or strangers, his contemporaries associated him with Socrates as a leader of a decadent intellectualism. Both were frequently lampooned by comic poets such as Aristophanes. Socrates was eventually put on trial and executed as a corrupting influence. Ancient biographies hold that Euripides chose a voluntary exile in old age, dying in Macedonia, but recent scholarship casts doubt on these sources.

Movies & Shows on Plex

  • Forgotten Pistolero

Known For

  • Medea
  • Medea
  • Iphigenia
  • Electra
  • Phaedra
  • The Trojan Women
  • A Dream of Passion
  • Medea
  • House on the Rocks
  • Hercules
  • National Theatre Live: Medea
  • Bash: Latter-Day Plays
  • The Bacchantes
  • Médée

Euripides Filmography

2023
Medea · as Play
2019
Medea · as Original Story
2014
National Theatre Live: Medea · as Theatre Play
2013
2011
2006
Metropolitan Opera: Live in HD (TV Series) · as After
2005
Medea (TV Series) · as Play
2002
The Bacchae · as Play
2001
Médée · as Theatre Play
1995
Hercules · as Based On A Story By
1993
Backanterna · as Author
1988
Medea · as Theatre Play
1985
Theatre Night (TV Series) · as Theatre Play
1983
Medea · as Story
1979
Medea · as Author
1977
Iphigenia · as Theatre Play
1974
House on the Rocks · as Play "hippolytus"
1971
The Trojan Women · as Theatre Play
1970
To theatro tis Defteras (TV Series) · as Play
1970
Dionysus in '69 · as Theatre Play
1969
Medea · as Theatre Play
1969
Forgotten Pistolero · as Play "orestes"
1965
Thirty-Minute Theatre (TV Series) · as Based On Play By
1965
Estudio 1 (TV Series) · as Play
1962
Electra · as Theatre Play
1962
Phaedra · as Theatre Play
1961
The Bacchantes · as Theatre Play
1959
The Play of the Week (TV Series) · as Play
1957
Television World Theatre (TV Series) · as Play "the Trojan Women"
1953
Television Theater (TV Series) · as Play

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