Description
Book SynopsisThis book is an accessible guide through the many twists and turns of Euripides'
Children of Heracles, providing several frameworks through which to understand and appreciate the play.
Children of Heracles follows the fortunes of Heracles' family after his death. Euripides confronts characters and audience alike with an extraordinary series of plot twists and ethical challenges as the persecuted family of refugees struggles to find asylum in Athens before taking revenge on its enemy Eurystheus. It is a fast-paced story that explores the nature of power and its abuse, focusing on the appropriate treatment and behaviour of the powerless and the obligations and limitations of asylum. The audience must continually re-evaluate the play's moral dimensions as the characters respond to complications that range from the fantastic to the frighteningly realistic.Yoon situates
Children of Heracles in its literary context, showing how Euripides constructs a unique kind of tragi
Trade ReviewYoon opens up this play’s neglected riches in crisp, lucid, and precise prose. * Greece & Rome *
With [an] earnest and well-executed plea for readers and theatre-goers to appreciate this relatively neglected play for what it has to offer rather than succumb to the weight of a long, but receding, history of negative critical reception, Yoon fulfils the aims of a Bloomsbury Companion admirably. * The Classical Review *
Table of ContentsList of figures Preface Chapter 1: Action and expectation Chapter 2: Summing the parts Chapter 3: Heracles and other imagined figures Chapter 4: The power of the weak Chapter 5: Then and now Appendix: Fragments Selected chronology Guide to Further Reading Notes Bibliography Index
