Article2008

Euripides' Heracles in the Flesh

71 citations0/0 files storedClassical Antiquity

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Classical Antiquity Studies Classical Philosophy and Thought History of Medicine Studies

Abstract

In this article, I analyze the role of Heracles' famous body in the representation of madness and its aftermath in Euripides' Heracles. Unlike studies of Trachiniae, interpretations of Heracles have neglected the hero's body in Euripides. This reading examines the eruption of that body midway through the tragedy as a part of Heracles that is daemonic and strange, but also integral to his identity. Central to my reading is the figure of the symptom, through which madness materializes onstage. Symptoms were contested sites of interpretation in the late fifth century, supporting both conventional narratives about human suffering and new stories advanced by contemporary medicine and ethics. In exploring the imaginative possibilities of these new stories, I do not privilege a “secular” over a “divine” reading. Rather I aim to offer a model of interaction between medicine and tragedy that sees the cross-breeding of worldviews as productive of innovative drama.

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References

1951The Greeks and the Irrational 1993Shame and Necessity 1985Miasma: Pollution and Purification in Early Greek Religion 1996Playing the other: gender and society in classical Greek literature 1981The Best of the Achaeans: Concepts of the Hero in Archaic Greek Poetry 1981The sophistic movement 1991Before Sexuality: The Construction of Erotic Experience in the Ancient Greek World 19931 THE HISTORY OF POLITICAL THOUGHT

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