Euripides, Hecuba

Justina Gregory (Smith College)

Ed. by Vaios Liapis, Open University of Cyprus
The Literary Encyclopedia. Volume 1.1.1: Greek Writing and Culture: Archaic, Classical, Hellenistic and Imperial, -800--100.
Vol. editors: Jonathan Burgess (University of Toronto), Anca Dan (École Practique de Hautes Études PSL), Martine Diepenbroek (University of Johannesburg), Giacomo Fedeli (University of Exeter), Victoria Fendel (University of Oxford), Emily Kneebone (University of Nottingham), Vaios Liapis (Open University of Cyprus), Elodie Paillard (University of Sydney), Mali Skotheim (Ashoka University), Laura Swift (The Open University), Guendalina Daniela Maria Taietti (University of Liverpool)

Dates

First circulation or publication c. -424

Places

Ancient Greece (Country of Origin)

Genres and Modes

Play
Tragedy

Resources

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Recommended Reading

Aristotle considered Euripides the “most tragic” of the dramatic poets (

Poetics

1453a29). If “tragic” connotes “serious and unsparing”, then

Hecuba

, which documents the effects of atrocious suffering on the human psyche and maps the shifting terrain of justice and revenge, must count as one of Euripides’ most tragic plays. Euripides returned time and again to the matter of Troy. Of the playwright’s eighteen surviving plays, the posthumously produced

Iphigenia in Aulis

concerns events leading up to the Trojan War, while six others—

Andromache

Hecuba, Trojan Women

Iphigenia among the Taurians, Helen

, and

Orestes—

are set in the postwar period.

Hecuba

has not come down with a date attached, but is in all likelihood the second of the six.

Euripides’ evolving metrical

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1713 words

Citation: Gregory, Justina. "Hecuba". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 09 July 2009 [https://www.litencyc.com/php/sworks.php?rec=true&UID=13367, accessed 21 November 2024.]

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Euripides, Hecuba

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