Background & Preliminaries

• 438 BC: Euripides earliest surviving play
• presented as the fourth play, in place of the satyr play
• curious tone: fairy tale and comic elements

Elements of the "satyr play" in the Alcestis

• Phrynichus, an earlier writer of tragedies, had earlier produced a satyr play proper with this title! (what would a "real" satyr play on this theme be like? a good paper topic!)

 
• What is like a satyr play?
• fairy-tale aspects (see below)
• Heracles: drunk and rude at a feast
• pattern: Thanatos seizes our heroine, rescued by Heracles in fairy-tale fashion
• happy ending

Elements of the "fairy tale" in the Alcestis
 

• Thanatos (="Death"), NOT the god of the underworld Hades
• substitution of one person for another in death
• Heracles' struggle with "Death"
• general folk tale pattern (German, Greek, and Armenian folk tales):
• On the wedding day of a King, Death comes for the bridegroom; Death is willing to accept a substitute, but both the King's parents refuse the sacrifice; finally, the young bride intervenes and follows Death to save the life of her beloved (and in some cases the bridegroom fights with Death to save his bride)
• there is evidence that the ancient Greek tale USUALLY was told in a way very close to this: notice how unproblematical the bridegroom's position is as the tale is usually told!

• performance criticism suggests that our reaction as an audience is buffeted: the play seems designed (?) to undermine confidence in our reading of the tone of the character's remarks

How to read Admetus: Admetus and Pheres

• Initial views of Admetus
• lamentation with his wife (remember the folklore background!)
• reception of Heracles
• signals from the chorus
• Argument with father, Pheres (second agonof the play)
• initially one may be prejudiced against Pheres
• 3X the "crime" of Pheres is alluded to: Apollo at line 15, Alcestis at line 290 (!), chorus at line 466
• Pheres' opening statement highly solipsistic: me, me, me!
• but then the unseemly strength of Admetus' statements push us in the other direction; as does the opening of Pheres' reply
• gerokomos: Greek sons are expected to respect, and take care of, their parents in their old age
• but then, at 699ff, Pheres overshoots the mark, and gradually reveals his contempt (728) for the "best of women"
• The grossly unseemly argument b/t son & father is followed by another grossly inappropriate scene, of the drunken Heracles!
• do we become outraged and disturbed at this essential flouting of essential social conventions?
• or do we pick up on the comic overtones, the hints of a satyr play? (Drunken Heracles is char. of the satyr play, hero Heracles of the tragedy!)
• It's in this context, after these oddball, gross scenes, that Admetus returns from the gravesite to the now hateful (862) house, lamenting (too histionically? 895), and has his realization (935ff).

How to read Alcestis: the "resolution" of the play
 

• Repeatedly: "the best of women" (cf. Achilles in the Iliad, the "best of the Achaeans")
• how are women generally, and this woman in particular, viewed in this play?
• what is the effect of this silent (veiled? -- a stage direction, thus not in the ancient play!) figure at the end?
• Admetus hesitates to take her in
• Admetus' increasingly pointed comments about her resemblance to his wife:
• "she is young, I can see it in her dress, her style"
• "you, lady, whoever you are, I tell you that you have the form of my Alcestis"
• "all your body is like hers"
• "for as I look on her, I think I see my wife"
• He sees, but cannot see, cannot believe any more in the reality of what he sees!
• Not until the end, when he touches her, does he finally "recognize" her as his wife
• how do we describe the effect of this strange conclusion?
• magical, like a religious mystery (a return from the dead!)?
• mechanical ending of the folktale?
• sardonic grin by a playful playwright?
• why doesn't Alcestis ever speak?
• magical?
• metaphysical? she is and is not!
• an ironical commentary on the status of women as chattel, passive, submissive?

• Alcestis
• Admetus
• Pheres
• Heracles
• Thanatos [="Death"]