@article{ART003146107},
author={Choi Mi},
title={The Entanglement of Life and Death: Theme and Genre in Euripides’ Alcestis},
journal={Journal of Humanities, Seoul National University},
issn={1598-3021},
year={2024},
volume={81},
number={4},
pages={209-243}
TY - JOUR
AU - Choi Mi
TI - The Entanglement of Life and Death: Theme and Genre in Euripides’ Alcestis
JO - Journal of Humanities, Seoul National University
PY - 2024
VL - 81
IS - 4
PB - Institute of Humanities, Seoul National University
SP - 209
EP - 243
SN - 1598-3021
AB - This study examines the genre classification of Euripides’ Alcestis through an analysis of its central thematic concerns: life and death.
Performed at the Great Dionysia in 438 BCE in place of the satyr play, Alcestis dramatizes the self-sacrifice of the eponymous protagonist for her husband, Admetus, culminating in her resurrection through Heracles’ intervention. Scholars have proposed diverse genre classifications of Alcestis with various interpretations contingent upon the analysis of its concurrent tragic, comic, and satyric elements.
This study posits that the coexistence of the tragic and comic dimensions of Alcestis is intrinsically connected to its treatment of life and death, with the play’s multi-layered nature stemming from the simultaneity of life and death.
This phenomenon manifests through the artificial and magical negation of death’s fundamental characteristics — its necessity and irreversibility.
Euripides subverts the nature of death in order to illuminate the bitter reality underlying the optimism and naïveté of wife-sacrifice narratives derived from folk tales. Consequently, the disruption of the natural order between life and death paradoxically underscores the necessity (anankē) of death. Through this process, Euripides employs a form of reductio ad absurdum in examining the attributes of death, wherein tragic and comic elements exist in a dual manner.
KW - Euripides;Alcestis;Admetus;Heracles;Pro-satyric Play;Tragicomedy;Life and Death;Irony;Reductio ad absurdum
DO -
UR -
ER -
Choi Mi. (2024). The Entanglement of Life and Death: Theme and Genre in Euripides’ Alcestis. Journal of Humanities, Seoul National University, 81(4), 209-243.
Choi Mi. 2024, "The Entanglement of Life and Death: Theme and Genre in Euripides’ Alcestis", Journal of Humanities, Seoul National University, vol.81, no.4 pp.209-243.
Choi Mi "The Entanglement of Life and Death: Theme and Genre in Euripides’ Alcestis" Journal of Humanities, Seoul National University 81.4 pp.209-243 (2024) : 209.
Choi Mi. The Entanglement of Life and Death: Theme and Genre in Euripides’ Alcestis. 2024; 81(4), 209-243.
Choi Mi. "The Entanglement of Life and Death: Theme and Genre in Euripides’ Alcestis" Journal of Humanities, Seoul National University 81, no.4 (2024) : 209-243.
Choi Mi. The Entanglement of Life and Death: Theme and Genre in Euripides’ Alcestis. Journal of Humanities, Seoul National University, 81(4), 209-243.
Choi Mi. The Entanglement of Life and Death: Theme and Genre in Euripides’ Alcestis. Journal of Humanities, Seoul National University. 2024; 81(4) 209-243.
Choi Mi. The Entanglement of Life and Death: Theme and Genre in Euripides’ Alcestis. 2024; 81(4), 209-243.
Choi Mi. "The Entanglement of Life and Death: Theme and Genre in Euripides’ Alcestis" Journal of Humanities, Seoul National University 81, no.4 (2024) : 209-243.
