Frogs, Euripides Flashcards
What does Euripides say about Aeschylus as a poet
“He’ll make a grand opening, gesticulating portentously,”
“He deceived the audience, treating them like the ignorant fools”
“first thing he’d do was sit one of his characters down and cover them up… A travesty of a tragedy! And they’d utter not so much as a grunt”
“Chorus would bump out ode after out…but the actors would remain silent”- this is in Agamemnon
“he would utter a dozen words as weighty as an ox…incomprehensible to the audience”
What does Euripides think about himself
“I claim to be a greater artist than him”
“In my plays slaves and women, young and old, would speak just as much as their masters”
“my drama was democratic”-“ then I taught these people to speak freely”
How is Euripides comic
“Thanks, but I pray to other gods”- funny as Dionysus is the god he should pray to
“Air, which sustains me.. tongue… wit…nostrils” same powers as invoked by socrates in the Clouds- tongue= power of rhetoric.
Show that Euripides is arrogant
“I won’t give up the throne. Don’t tell me what to do. I claim to be a greater artist than him”
“I’ll not shrink from the task- to bite or be bitten first”
“You’re talking nonsense. My prologues are well written”
What does Euripides say about Aeschylus as a person
“a crude craftsman, a stubborn brute- uncontrolled, unbridled, incontinent. A ponderous, bragging bundle of boasts”
“a charlatan and a cheat”
“God, no, not a hint of sex from you”
Show that Euripides is hubristic
“You were naive”
“Remember the gods! you swore you’d pick me and take me back home”
“What are you doing you lousy shit?”
“can you look me in the eye after this outrage?”
“You bastard. Will you stand there and see me dead”
What does Euripides say about how he changed theatre
“when I first took over the art from you she was obese, all swollen with overweight words”
“the first thing I did was put her on a diet”
“the first person on stage would immediately explain the background”
“I introduced domestic scenarios we can relate to”
Why does Euripides say that we should admire poets
“For his cleverness and good advice. Because we make people in our cities better.”
What “errors” does Euripides claim Aeschylus has made
exploits a lack of clarity as to “a father’s realm” and which realm it is
claims that “Aeschylus has told us the same thing twice”. “‘I have come’ is the same as ‘I returned’”
“I have ways of showing he is a bad poet and always writes the same things”
Why does Euripides lose the weighing of words
“flown on her winged way”- too light
“Persuasion has no temple other than reason”- Persuasion is insubstantial and has no mind of its own
“wooden cudgel weighted with iron”- heavy but Ae is heavier
What does Euripides say about Athens
“I hate a man who’s slow to aid his country but quick to cause deep harm; good at helping himself, but not at helping the city”
“When we trust what we now mistrust, and when we mistrust what we now trust… If we didn’t trust the citizens we trust now, but used those we currently reject [we’d be saved]”
