Document Type
Article
Publication Date
1-1-2000
Abstract
Euripides' extant Hippolytus was a rare "re-production" of an earlier play on the same mythic episode. The play contains a series of metadramatic comments on its partial interchange of Phaedra's and the Nurse's original roles. The Nurse's appearance in the "Stephanias" as seducer of a virtuous Phaedra is presented as a "change of mind." Her "second thoughts" (to corrupt, rather than dissuade Phaedra) mirror the playwright's decision to amend a shameless Phaedra's character by, conversely, degenerating the Nurse's. His covert comments on this strategy of reversal underline the oddity of his decision to correct his first try at the story.
Recommended Citation
Emily A. McDermott. "Euripides' Second Thoughts" Transactions of the American Philological Association 130 (2000): 239-259. http://scholarworks.umb.edu/classics_faculty_pubs/4
Publisher
Johns Hopkins University Press for the American Philological Association (APA)
Comments
Pre-print version of article that appeared in Transactions of the American Philological Association, published by the Department of Classical Studies at the University of Missouri-Columbia.