Synopses & Reviews
Human sacrifice, a spirited heroine, a quest ending in a hairsbreadth escape, the touching reunion of long-lost siblings, and exquisite poetry--these features have historically made Euripides' Iphigenia in Tauris one of the most influential of Greek tragedies. Yet, despite its influence and popularity in the ancient world, the play remains curiously under-investigated in both mainstream cultural studies and more specialized scholarship. With Adventures with Iphigenia in Tauris, Edith Hall provides a much-needed cultural history of this play, giving as much weight to the impact of the play on subsequent Greek and Roman art and literature as on its manifestations since the discovery of the sole surviving medieval manuscript in the 1500s. The book argues that the reception of the play is bound up with its spectacular setting on the southern coast of the Crimean peninsula in what is now the Ukraine, a territory where world history has often been made. However, it also shows that the play's tragicomic tenor and escape plot have had a tangible influence on popular culture, from romantic fiction to Hollywood action films. The thirteen chapters illustrate how reactions to the play have evolved from the ancient admiration of Aristotle and Ovid, the Christian responses of Milton and Catherine the Great, the anthropological ritualists and theatrical Modernists including James Frazer and Isadora Duncan, to recent feminist and postcolonial dramatists from Mexico to Australia. Individual chapters are devoted to the most significant adaptations of the tragedy, Gluck's opera Iphigénie en Tauride and Goethe's verse drama Iphigenie auf Tauris. Richly illustrated and accessibly written, with all texts translated into English, Adventures with Iphigenia in Tauris argues elegantly for a reappraisal of this Euripidean masterpiece.
Review
"In this superb and richly detailed study, Adventures with Iphigenia in Tauris, Edith Hall has orchestrated, with impassioned and assiduous attention, this remarkable afterlife of Iphigenia."--Marina Warner, The Times Literary Supplement
"Hall takes readers on a fascinating exploration of the reception history of Euripides's Iphigenia in Tauris (IT). A foremost authority on Greek tragedy, Hall displays her erudition as she examines how IT has influenced drama and other artistic media from the fifth century BCE to the present.... This scholarly volume will appeal to a wide audience, including classicists, social historians, and general readers. Highly Recommended."--S. E. Goins, CHOICE
"From the Crimea to California, from Euripides to Pina Bausch, brave Iphigenia survives in every era and medium. Edith Hall's wonderful study of the entire tradition finds her now suffering as a victim of modern colonialism, now masquerading as Princess Leia. Broad-ranging and richly erudite, it is a joyous discovery."--Richard P. Martin, Stanford University
"With characteristic panache and immense erudition, Edith Hall takes us on a fascinating journey through a broad sweep of time and place to offer a fresh assessment of Euripides' least well-known play and its cultural aftermath. One of the most influential plays in pagan antiquity, this emotionally complex drama has been largely overlooked outside the academy over the past several decades. By exploring the variant readings, visual images and inter-texts that emanate from the play, Hall puts Euripides' Black Sea tragedy back on the map and demonstrates its continued relevance for today."--Laura McClure, University of Wisconsin-Madison
About the Author
Edith Hall is Professor of Classics at King's College London.
Table of Contents
Acknowledgements
List of Illustrations
Timeline
Preface: The Play, its Myth, and the Date of its First Production
I.Rediscovering Tauris
II. Iphigenia, Quest Heroine
III. Travel Tragedy
IV. Plots and Pots: The Fourth-century Popularity of Ipigenia in Tauris
V. Orestes, Pylades, and Roman Men
VI. Iphigenia's Imperial Escapades
VII. Escorts of Artemis
VIII. The Christian Conversion of Iphigenia
IX. Gluck's Ipigénie in Pain
X. Goethe's Ipigenie Between Germany and the World
XI. Rites of Modernism
XII. Women's Adventures with Iphigenia
XIII. Decolonizing Thoas
Conclusion
Abbreviations
Bibliography
Index