Revista Filosofía UIS

Vol. 22 No. 2 (2023): July - December
Articles

To think about death (and laugh about it). Heracles’ speech (773-802) in Euripides’ Alcestis. A palinode?

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  • Juan Felipe Rivera Pardo
Juan Felipe Rivera Pardo
Universidade de Brasilia
Bio
DOI: https://doi.org/10.18273/revfil.v22n2-2023002

Published 2023-07-04

Keywords

  • Death,
  • Tragedy,
  • Satyr play,
  • Alcestis,
  • Euripides,
  • Heracles
    • ...More
    Less

How to Cite

Rivera Pardo, J. F. (2023). To think about death (and laugh about it). Heracles’ speech (773-802) in Euripides’ Alcestis. A palinode?. Revista Filosofía UIS, 22(2), 43–61. https://doi.org/10.18273/revfil.v22n2-2023002

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Abstract

One of the main debates around Euripides' Alcestis is its dramatic classification, because despite being represented in the place that a satyr play would have occupied, it does not have the characteristic elements of this genre, such as the chorus made up of satyrs, but it does has typical characteristics of a tragedy (structure, themes), while it has a happy ending in the style of a comedy. As Voelke (2015) points out, the essence of the encounter between tragedy and satyr play lies in the confrontation of life and death from which the play is structured. One of the elements in which this confrontation is condensed is Heracles's discourse on death (773-802), which seems to contain a philosophical vision of death. However, this speech is pronounced in the midst of drunkenness. Heracles himself is an ambiguous character who thrives in both tragedy and comedy, so much so that he can be considered the equivalent of Dionysus. Therefore, here we would like to explore to what extent, from this confluence of satirical and tragic elements, it is possible to find a conception of death in Heracles' speech.

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