Euripides was the last of the three great Athenian dramatists, as well as the most controversial. He was a man defiant of established beliefs and preoccupied with the dichotomy between instinctive/barbaric and civilized behavior. For the Greeks, ‘civilised’ life meant controlled, orderly, proportionate life with ‘no excess’. As a principle, this applied equally to everything; politics, social habits and the arts. To them it was the only life, a life of moderation and rationality which enforced firm opposition to anything relating to the emotive or the excessive. Euripides commented on this divide in most of his plays. Euripides however, challenged the elitism of the civilised, choosing rather to conclude his plays with the suggestion of balance between the Greek idea of ‘civilisation’ and the other, ‘barbarity’.

This gulf between the rational, civilized Greek and the emotional, barbaric Greek can be seen with particular poignancy when studying Euripides’ great tragedy, Medea, and also his satyr, Cyclops. In these p

lays it is interesting to note that not only does this divide correspond to gender but also the social hierarchy between Greeks of differing states.

Is best by far, in name and practice.

Some topics in this essay:
Instead Euripides, Euripides Athenian, Medea Cyclops, Medea Jason, Odysseus Cyclopes, Euripides’ Medea, II MEDEA, life life, established medea, euripides’ medea, medea cyclops,