EURIPIDES’ RUPTURE IN TRADITIONAL GREEK TRAGEDIES: AN INFLUENTIAL PLAYWRIGHT IN SHAKESPEARE.

Abstract

This essay deals with the influence of Greek theatre in the renaissance’s tragedy. Concretely, it is focus on William Shakespeare’s Macbeth. Firstly, there are some researches where Euripides is distinguish from Greek authors as Aeschylus and Sophocles, raising some plays of Euripides like Electra, Orestes and Heracles. Moreover, this essay takes into consideration the repression that those plays had to 3 philosophers and the audience in that time. On the one hand, joined features of Euripides and Shakespeare are analyzed in a tragedy written by the second one: Macbeth. In addition, a comparison will be made among the subversive aspect in Shakespeare and the rupture of Euripides, representing both issues a parallel development on their plays, in the sense they were pioneers of their age. This work finishes with a brief conclusion, accompanied by the bibliography where all the sources and quotes are contrasted. The importance of the essay resides on how Shakespeare can be so joined to Euripides’ plays in Macbeth if he did not know so much about the Greek tradition, because coincidences are so obvious among their plays. That means Shakespeare could have studied Greek author deeper than it is known nowadays. Mainly, the English bard could read some of the Euripides’ plays, who broke with the general conventions of the Greek tradition. The same Shakespeare did in the English renaissance.