Euripides was a Greek dramatist. He was born in 480 BC ior 485 BC at Phyla on the island of Salamis and died in 406 BC. He studied under Prodicus and Anaxagoras, and is said to have begun to write tragedies at the age of eighteen, although his first published play, the Peliades, appeared only in 455 BC. He was not successful in gaining the first prize until the year 441 BC, and he continued to exhibit until 408 BC, when he exhibited the Orestes. The violence of unscrupulous enemies, who accused him of impiety and unbelief in the gods, drove Euripides to take refuge at the court of Archelaus, king of Macedonia, where he was held in the highest honour. According to a tradition he was killed by hounds in 406 BC.
Euripides is a master of tragic situations and pathos, and shows much knowledge of human nature and skill in grouping characters, but his works lack the artistic completeness and the sublime earnestness that characterize AEschylus and Sophocles. Euripides is said to have composed seventy-five, or according to another authority ninety-two tragedies. Of these eighteen (or nineteen, including the Ehesus) are extant: Alcestis, Medea, Hippolytus, Hecuba, Heracleidse, Supplices, Ion, Hercules Eurens, Andromache, Troades, Electra, Helena, Iphigenia in Tauris, Orestes, Phcenissse, Bacchas, Iphigenia in Aulis, and Cyclops. Research Euripides
George Buchanan was a Scottish reformer, historian, scholar, and Latin poet. He was born in 1506 at the parish of Killearn, Stirlingshire and died in 1582. An uncle sent him in 1520 to the University of Paris, but the death of his uncle compelled his return, and in 1523 he joined the French auxiliaries employed by the regent, Albany, serving as a private soldier in one campaign against the English. He was then sent to the University of St Andrews, where he took the Arts degree in October, 1525. Following his tutor, Mair or Major, to France, he became in 1526 a student in the Scots College of Paris; took his degrees; in 1529 was elected professor in the College of St Barbe; and in 1532 was engaged as friend and tutor of Gilbert Kennedy earl of Cassillis, with whom he resided for five years, and to whom he inscribed his first published work, a translation of Linacre's Rudiments of LatinGrammar, printed in 1533.
In 1536 Cassillis and George Buchanan returned to Scotland, where the latter published his Sonmium, a satire against the Franciscans. To shield him from the hostility of the Roman Catholic party, James V retained him as preceptor to his natural son James Stuart, encouraging him to write the Franciscanus, one of the most pungent satires to be found in any language. By the Catholic influence he was arrested in 1539, but escaped to London and thence to France, where he became professor of Latin at Bordeaux, wrote his tragedies Jephthes and Baptistes, and translated the Medea and Alcestis of Euripides.
Among his pupils was Montaigne, and he was on intimate terms with the elder Scaliger. From BordeauxBuchanan removed to Paris, and thence to Portugal to take a chair in the University of Coimbra. Here he was sentenced by the Inquisition to be confined in a monastery, but at length received permission to depart, and was shortly afterwards appointed to a regency in the College of Boncourt at Paris, an office held by him until 1555, when he was engaged as tutor to the son of the Comte de Brissac. During this period a portion of his version of the Psalms in Latinverse was published.
About 1560 he returned to Scotland, and for some time acted as tutor to the young queen Mary, to whom he dedicated his version of the Psalms. He had now openly joined the leaders of the Reformation. In 1566 he was nominated principal of St Leonard's College, St Andrews, and in the following year was chosen moderator of the General Assembly, the only instance of the chair being held by a layman. When Elizabeth called witnesses from Scotland to substantiate the charges against Mary, George Buchanan accompanied the Regent Moray into England, and his evidence against her was highly important.
In 1570 he was selected to superintend the education of King James, whom he made an excellent scholar. He was also appointed keeper of the privy-seal, a post which he held until 1578. In 1579 he published his De Jure Regni apud Scotos, a work in which he defended the rights of the people to judge of and control the conduct of their governors, and which subsequently had much influence on political thought. The dedication of his Rerum Scoticarum Historia (History of Scotland) to the king is dated August 29th, 1582, and on the 28th September following George Buchanan died.
As a Latinist both in prose and verse he was perhaps the best of his day, as evidenced by his History and his version of the Psalms. As regards its matter, the former is entirely uncritical, and is of value only for matters belonging to his own time. Research George Buchanan
Peter Elmsley was an English scholar. He was born in 1773 and died in 1825. Educated at Oxford, he was one of the original contributors to the Edinburgh review, and wrote occasionally, at a subsequent period, in the Quarterly. He finally settled at Oxford, on obtaining the headship of St Alban Hall and the Camden professorship of ancient history in 1823. He published editions of the OEdipus Tyrannus (1811), Heraclidae (1815), Medea (1818), Bacchae (1821), and OEdipus Coloneus (1823). Research Peter Elmsley
Pierre Corneille was a French dramatist. He was born in 1606 at Rouen and died in 1684. He was a master of the classical tragedy and classiccomedy. He began his dramatic career with comedy, and a series of vigorous dramas, Melite (1629), Olitandre, La Veuve, La Snivante, etc, announced the advent of a dramatist of a high order. In 1635 he entered the field of tragedy with Medea;
but it was not until the appearance of his next work, the famous Cid, that Pierre Corneille's claim was recognized to a place amongst the great tragic poets. The Cid was an imitation of a Spanish drama, and though gravely defective in the improbabilities of the plot and other respects, achieved an immense success for a certain sublimity of sentiment and loftiness of ideal, which are the native characteristics of Pierre Corneille's poetry. After the Cid appeared in rapid succession Horace (1639); Cinna (1639), his masterpiece, according to Voltaire; and Polyeucte (1640), works which show Corneille's genius at its best. Many of his later pieces exhibit a marked decline.
Besides his dramas he wrote some elegies, sonnets, epistles, etc; as well as three prose essays on dramatic poetry. As a dramatist his merits are loftiness of sentiment and conception, admirably expressed in a bold and heroic style of versification and language. But in this constant straining after a heroic ideal he was apt to fall into a declamatory and inflated style. Research Pierre Corneille
Richard Glover was an English poet. He was born in 1712 and died in 1785. Though engaged in mercantile pursuits he devoted much of his attention to literature, and acquired a high reputation as a scholar and a poet. In 1760 he entered parliament, where his abilities gained him considerable influence. He was the author of two epics, Leonidas and the Atheniad; London, or the Progress of Commerce; two tragedies, Boadicea and Medea, etc. Research Richard Glover
Samuel Barber was an American composer. He was born in 1910 at West Chester and died in 1981. He trained at the Curtis Institute of Music, Philadelphia. One of the best-known American composers of the neo-romantic school, he received the Prix de Rome in 1935, Pulitzer Travelling Scholarships in music in 1935 and 1936, a Guggenheim Fellowship in 1945, and the Pulitzer Prize for music in 1958 and 1963. Among his compositions for orchestra are the overture to The School for Scandal written in 1933, Adagio for Strings written in 1936, and two symphonies written in 1936 and 1944; concertos for violin written in 1940, cello written in 1945, and piano written in 1962; and the ballets Medea written in 1946. He also composed works for chorus, chamber ensemble, and piano, and he is noted for his songs. His first opera, Vanessa written in 1958, has been recorded. His second opera, Anthony and Cleopatra written in 1966, was commissioned for the opening performance at the new Metropolitan Opera House in New York City. Research Samuel Barber
Diana Rigg is a British actress. She was born in 1938 at Yorkshire. She trained at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art and joined the Royal Shakespeare Company (RSC) at Stratford- on-Avon in 1959 and made her mark shortly thereafter in productions of The Taming Of the Shrew, A Midsummer Night's Dream, Macbeth, and King Lear. Following a year-long stint as Emma Peel in the television series 'The Avengers', she joined the National Theatre, where she played Dottie in Tom Stoppard's Jumpers, Celimene in The Misanthrope, Eliza Doolittle in Pygmalion, and Phaedra in Phaedra Britannica. She also starred in Tom Stoppard's 'Night and Day', Antony and Cleopatra, Stephen Sondheim's Follies, and won a Tony Award in 1994 for her Broadway performance in the title role of Medea. Research Diana Rigg
Absyrtus (Apsyrtus) was a son of Aeetes, King of Colchis and brother of Medea. When Medea fled with Jason she took Absyrtus with her and when her father nearly overtook them she murdered Absyrtus and cut his body into pieces and threw it around the road so that her father would be delayed picking up the pieces of his son. Research Absyrtus
Acastus was a son of Pelias. He was one of the Argonauts. When Medea caused his father's death he banished her and Jason. He was hospitable towards Peleus, but suspecting him of making advances towards his wife he left Peleus to die at the hands of the Centaurs. Peleus later returned to slay the couple. Research Acastus
In Greek mythology Glauce was daughter of King Creon of Corinth, and the second bride of Jason. She was murdered on her wedding day by Medea, whom Jason had deserted, by way of a poisoned wedding robe sent to her as a wedding gift. When she put the robe on she was burned to death, as was her father as he embraced his dying daughter. In Greek mythology, Glauce was a sea nymph, one of the Nereids. Research Glauce
The Probert Encyclopaedia was designed, edited and programed by
Matt and Leela Probert
Abbreviations
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