4/5 stars ! Read all four plays, and Medea was my favourite ! Very interesting read, lots of drama my goodness & very fun and vicious dialogue ! I liked that the graphic violence was more described than shown (I guess bc the whole theatre effects weren't as fancy then but still). Overall very fun and enjoyable, would def b fun to watch performed !

read for clciv 250, but also would have read on my own accord. medea and bacchae are my top two plays of all time. love me some euripides

Incest! War! Sex! Jealousy, love, hatred and greed. Greek tragedy centralizes on these themes, especially in these plays by Euripides. The true interaction of the Ancient Greeks with their gods is implied through the anthropomorphic characteristics given to the gods. Plus, they're just good stories!

Nietzsche believed Euripides to be both agent and symptom of ancient Greek decadence. His critical and analytic mind, along with that of his confederate, Socrates, are indicative of the evisceration of the Greek instinct, an instinct which had hitherto unreflectively established the greatest culture, represented by tragedy, ever to grace the earth. This judgment depends upon a slew of ancillary judgments - about the quality of pre-Euripidean tragedy of Aeschelus and Sophocles, about the nature of tragedy itself, about degree of self-awareness expressed in Euripidean tragedy, and about the nature and purpose of art - that render the specifics of the more general judgment dubious, or at least highly contentious.
The modern reader will likely be baffled by these four Euripidean plays, and the goal is to understand why the ancients charged with the laborious tasking of the transmission of ancient culture, found these to be worth preserving. Was their transmission a mistake, a Nietzsche contends? If not, what do they reveal about Greek democratic culture and, vicariously, our own democratic culture? To this end, they are, like any sophisticated literature, best read untranslated, a time-consuming task well-worth the effort. To the degree that Nietzsche was correct in his assertion that art is the metaphysical activity of man (i.e., the creation of art is humanities distinctive characteristic), it is incumbent upon us to refine our aesthetic judgment (is there an aesthetic judgment distinct from other forms of judgment?) and to discriminate between those works that are worthy of culture transmission and those that are not, and the attentive reading of these works is a necessary prologue to making these sorts of judgments, regardless of one's ultimate understanding of Euripides' work. Recommended to all engaged in this endeavor.

read for class

This was great!! I wish Medea came up with a better way for the demise of Jason however the piece of the ship hitting him is symbolic to their marriage so what it lacks in goriness, it makes up for in a symbolic way. At first, yes one can sympathize with Medea, however she twists her plans to include the murders of her own children. This was taken to the extreme and we now must take sides with Jason, who has no royal wife, no children to heir his king-hood, and a predictable death. In the meantime, Medea flies off in a chariot after she is done with her rampage to King Aigeus.

i had to read this for classical lit. and really loved it. All four stories are equally enjoyable. you won't regret.

Read Hippolytus and Bacchae.

Bacchae is extraordinary. (5 stars) I'm on the fence about Medea. (3 stars)

The plays are all pretty good except for Bacchae which is phenomenal.

What a discovery. I didn't even know Greek plays existed. Bloody, violent, set in a world soaked in brutality, tripped or fated by the random acts of gods. Gods that do walk amongst mortals. Here is the Bronze Age. Welcome.

2.5 Stars. I liked half of it. I read Heracles and Bacchae. Kinda liked Heracles, and really didn't like Bacchae.