Euripides

Euripides was tragedian, otherwise known as a play director. He was born c.485 and 480 B.C.E, on the the island of Salamis but grew up in Athens. Growing up, he was being trained to be an athlete. Except that was not his main interest. He enjoyed writing plays about tragedies; therefore, he was a tragedian. euripides began writing plays before the age of twenty. Other than play writing, he had a high interest in philosophy and liteature("Biography of Euripides").
 * Euripides **

Euripides was not popular during his lifetime because the plays sometimes suffered from weak structure aand

wandering focus. He wrote about 90 plays during his career, and some of them are Bacchae, Iphigenia in

Aluis, Medea, and Alcestis.(Pearson 38,66)For the Play Bacchae and Iphieniain Aluis, they were both

written in Macedonia("Biography of Euripides").

One of Euripides most misunderstood plays was **__Medea__**. Modern readers tend to ignorethe fact that it is

written for an audience of men, and women's rights were never an issue in ancient Athens. The women take

over the government. It was funny because it was a pure fantasy(Wilson).

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Another play that was written by Euripides was **__Helen__**. This play was written to apologize to Helen for all the nasty things he said abot her in her other plays. He portrayed Helen being sent to Egyptian war by the gods. This idea is put forward as an example of the extreme cynicism that you'd expect from the immortals-but in this play such bitterness seems out of place(Wilson). The charming, beautiful and witty Helen from Troy is part of Euripides fast moving plot with excellent characters(Wilson).



Euripides was most inspired to write his plays about horrors of war. This upsetted the Athenians however. The Athenians didn't want to be constantly reminded of the wars they have fought. If it is from a loss to the Spartans or a victory against a small village in their area, they want no reminder of it.

Euripides died in 406 B.C.E., and his son rteturned to Athens to finish his last play at the city Dionyisia. Also, Bacchae and it's campanion pieces won first place.("Biography of Euripides")