Overview

Ion is one of Euripides' most appealing and inventive plays. With its story of an anonymous temple slave discovered to be the son of Apollo and Creusa, an Athenian princess, it is a rare example of Athenian myth dramatized for the Athenian stage. It explores the Delphic Oracle and Greek piety; the Athenian ideology of autochthony and empire; and the tragic suffering and longing of the mythical foundling and his mother, whose experiences are represented uniquely in surviving Greek literature. The plot anticipates later Greek comedy, while the recognition scene builds on a tradition founded by Homer's Odyssey and Aeschylus' Oresteia. The introduction sets out the main issues in interpretation and discusses the play's contexts in myth, religion, law, politics, and society. By attending to language, style, meter, and dramatic technique, this edition with its detailed commentary makes Ion accessible to students, scholars, and readers of Greek at all levels.

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9780521596565

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Reviews

'... this is a very competent edition of Euripides' Ion, which shows comprehensive familiarity with modern work on the play and its background ... detailed enough for the majority of readers.' Michael Lloyd, Exemplaria Classica '... wonderfully sound, tremendously useful for the student and scholar, and constitutes a landmark publication. James Diggle and his team of editors deserve the highest praise for their achievement.' Dublin Review of Books '... tactful, packed with insights and ideas that will generate insight and ideas in any careful reader.' Gregory Crane, Bryn Mawr Classical Review

'... this is a very competent edition of Euripides' Ion, which shows comprehensive familiarity with modern work on the play and its background ... detailed enough for the majority of readers.' Michael Lloyd, Exemplaria Classica

Author Information

John C. Gibert is Associate Professor of Classics at the University of Colorado, Boulder. He is author of Change of Mind in Greek Tragedy (1995) and co-author (with C. Collard and M. J. Cropp) of Euripides: Selected Fragmentary Plays II (2004). He has also written numerous articles, chapters, and reviews on Greek drama, religion, and philosophy.

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