Euripides and Alcestis: Speculations, Simulations, and Stories of Love in the Athenian Culture

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University Press of America, 1998 - 113 pages
Euripides and Alcestis demonstrates the inherent presence of indeterminacy in Euripides' play, Alcestis. The author uses about eighty of the scholarly attempts to establish a determinate meaning of the play to exhibit the difficulty and lack of success in previous attempts at interpretation. She recognizes that the meaning of the play is surrounded by ambiguity and indeterminacy and provides an interpretation based on this knowledge. As an interpretation, the author focuses on Admetus' desire in relation to Alcestis' statue and his nature as a fifth century Athenian man while exposing Alcestis as a nonidentity. She also analyzes the issues of representation and spectatorship, showing that the theatrical performance is constructed in order to function as vehicles for the satisfaction of a dominant position-that of Admetus and the spectator of the performance.

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Contents

Hypotheses
1
Notes to Part I
19
Who Admetus Was
25
Her Statue and Alcestis
27
Admetus and his Friends
39
The Stranger of the House
47
Notes to Part II
59
When Heracles Visited
69
Love Story
71
Notes to Part III
83
Conclusion
89
Notes to the Conclusion
91
Bibliography
93
Index
107
Copyright

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About the author (1998)

Kiki Gounaridou is Assistant Professor of Theater and Performance Studies at the University of Pittsburgh.

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