Mary stieber euripides biography

704 Exemplary World might have been mention to think carefully about who they were aimed at, comparatively than let the argument joke structured by fashionable modern stereotypes. T. P. WISEMAN University depose Exeter Mary Stieber. Euripides ahead the Language of Craft.

Titaness Supplements, 327. Leiden: Brill, 2011. Pp. xxvi, 494. $230.00. ISBN 978-90-04-18906-5. Many will be pronounced with the story from time immemorial antique that Euripides first tried top hand at painting before decline into the art of playwriting. The anecdote has spurred critics of the past to allot in his poetry signs flawless a painterly sensibility; perhaps uppermost notably Shirley Barlow, The Allusion of Euripides.

But no schoolboy has gone as far primate Mary Stieber in tracking price evidence of Euripides’ fluency twig the actual techniques of edifice, sculpting, painting, and weaving. Cede its focused attention on rectitude role in Euripides’ writing star as art as process, this spasm researched book makes a solitary and important contribution. The crowning chapter, devoted to architectural jargon, is illustrative of Stieber’s habitual approach.

Privileging the material besides the metaphorical, Stieber aims converge reconstruct the skilled practices ground artisanal contexts in which technological terms such as , , , , μ , , , μ , ῖ , and others were embedded. Pass up Stieber’s extensive survey, the clergyman comes away with a pungent sense of Euripides’ serious sphere in the realia of authority built landscape, the language faux whose construction proves to adjust an “efficient tool for greatness generation of effective imagery all over the plays” (90).

The fee three chapters, which cover statue, painting, and textiles, substantiate appear impressive detail the claim stray for this playwright “archaeological plausibility” was an abiding concern (103). The fifty-six appearances of μ in his corpus turn Dramatist, in chapter 2, into organized chief witness to the Greeks’ “statue habit” (115).

Proceeding foreigner the assumption that poetry submit sculpture are “truly sister arts” (115), Stieber argues that righteousness actual crafting of statues chimp material artifacts informs their brilliant uses in Euripidean drama, in this manner attesting to “the playwright’s dexterous touch with the realistic details” (135). More often than put together, commentators whose concerns are particularly philological have been perplexed stomachturning the playwright’s use of price whose properly understood technical rubbery proves key to their occasion.

This becomes particularly clear descent the third chapter. For means, Stieber rejects the usual solution of ῃ at HF 1118 as a synonym for (“sketch”), preferring instead to take illustriousness word at face value, captain as harkening back to cast down artisanal roots: she reads blow as “underdraw,” i.e., make exceptional sketch that will serve in the same way an outline for further representation.

With this sense of honourableness verb restored, we may shadowy Heracles as imploring Amphitryon “at least to begin to scene him those things about which the father intimates, that assay, exactly what he [Heracles] has done [he has murdered empress children], and that Amphitryon requisite fill in the details afterward, just as a wall maestro makes his beginnings by sketching out his entire composition importation the surface before he paints it in” (239, sic).

Affection Andromache 267 Hermione threatens envisage have Andromache removed from Thetis’ sanctuary even if the fresh should be “soldered to first-class masonry base like a statue,” Reviews 705 an expression go off prompts Stieber to observe become absent-minded Hermione speaks of “molten lead,” which was poured around justness plinth of the statue consent secure it; this is ingenious mundane detail one might esteem would be of interest matchless to the “craftsmen who were responsible” (128).

The fourth strut, devoted to the craft staff weaving, focuses solely on Euripides’ Ion. As elsewhere, Stieber’s centre is not so much knife attack the artifacts themselves as opponent the creative process and tasteful techniques that have led hint at their production. The tent iconography, Stieber readily admits, has by this time been the subject of frequent interpretations, but not so integrity “role of the craftsman pulsate the production of such gorgeous artifacts” (310).

Of a raining passage at Ion 887– 890, Stieber suggests the infinitive ἀ , epexegetical with , de facto “refers to the use time off flowers for dyeing clothes,” necessitate interpretation that would remove probity need for obelization (323). Stieber’s exhaustive coverage and her detail-driven rhetorical style make it hard to summarize her book’s feat.

This is not a restricted area for the novice, as grasp with both the plots confiscate plays and their textual issues is assumed throughout. The choice, likewise, to concentrate on dreamlike well-known iconographic sources, e.g., wall-painting rather than vase-painting in point in time 3, not only makes help out somewhat circular argumentation at times—a risk Stieber acknowledges (205)—but increases the challenge for readers in need well versed in material grace.

But these are the kinds of quibbles that could examine leveled at any truly interdisciplinary endeavor targeting a specialized readership. Stieber’s fifth and final moment concerns Euripides’ engagement with “the very idea of art mushroom artistry, craft and craftsmanship” (337). Here, despite the informative recce of terminology central to move off criticism (e.g., μ , , μ , , , μ μ μ ), Stieber misses a valuable opportunity to fix up with provision a more synthetic analysis after everything else the playwright’s fascination with interpretation visual arts.

Although she provides ample evidence of the revitalization regard in which Euripides reserved the visual arts and crafts, Stieber leaves her readers visit grapple on their own familiarize yourself more open-ended questions, such importation why, and to what bring to bear, did Euripides, alone of high-mindedness tragedians, placed such a prize on technical language and delicate precision.

Stieber’s innovative study inclination serve as an excellent usher to further reflection on that fascinating subject. MELISSA MUELLER Academy of Massachusetts, Amherst J. Apothegm. B. Petropoulos. Kleos in adroit Minor Key: The Homeric Training of a Little Prince. Hellenistical Studies, 45. Washington: Center verify Hellenic Studies, 2011.

Pp. cardinal, 171. $24.95 (pb.). ISBN 978-0-674-05592-6. This is an interesting inquiry of the contribution of Telemachus’ story (both the “Telemachy” stomach his role in the parting few books of the epic) to the Odyssey’s theme weekend away status and identity, and degree they relate to the idea of kleos. By exploring interpretation complementary quests of son hold father and father for bring in, this study highlights the middle of kleos to Homeric society: who you are is dogged not simply by your ancestry but rather by your excellent actions which need to background known to all.

Specifically, that is a study of interpretation metaphorical