49 pages 1 hour read

Euripides

Heracles

Fiction | Play | Adult | BCE

A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.

Further Reading & Resources

Further Reading: Scholarship

Arete and Bia in Euripides’ Herakles by H. H. O. Chalk, Journal of Hellenic Studies 82 (1962)

Chalk’s article is a classic work of scholarship discussing the role of heroic virtue (arete) and bia (strength) in Euripides’s Heracles. The article aims to refute the idea—once influential—that Heracles exhibits signs of madness before Hera drives him mad.

“Unity and Meaning of Euripides’ Heracles by J. C. Kamerbeek, Mnemosyne 19 (1966)

Kamerbeek’s articles discusses the themes and dramatic structure of Euripides’ Heracles, providing a good introductory overview for readers.

Heracles and Euripidean Tragedy by T. Papadopoulou, Cambridge University Press (2005)

Papadopoulou’s book explores the ambivalent depiction of Heracles in traditional Greek mythology and in Euripides’s Heracles.

Euripides: Heracles by E. Griffiths, Bristol Classical Press (2006)

Griffiths offers a useful overview of the play and various interpretations of it. The book is part of a series of handbooks on Greek and Roman tragedy.

Related Titles

By Euripides

Study Guide
Guide cover image

Alcestis

Euripides, William Arrowsmith

Study Guide
Guide cover image

Cyclops

Euripides

Study Guide
Guide cover image

Electra

Euripides, George Theodorides, Janet Lempke

Study Guide
Guide cover image

Hecuba

Euripides, M. Tierney

Study Guide
Guide cover image

Helen

Euripides, Colin Leach, James Michie

Study Guide
Guide cover image

Hippolytus

Euripides

Study Guide
Guide cover image

Ion

Ed. John C. Gilbert, Euripides, Peter Burian, W.S. Di Piero

Study Guide
Guide cover image

Iphigenia in Aulis (Plays for Performance Series)

Bernard Sahlins, Nicholas Rudall, Euripides

Teaching Guide + Study Guide
Guide cover image

Medea

Euripides, Rex Warner

Study Guide
Guide cover image

Orestes

Euripides, John Peck, Frank Nisetich

Study Guide
Guide cover image

The Bacchae

Euripides, Kenneth McLeish, Frederic Raphael

Study Guide
Guide cover image

The Trojan Women

Euripides, Alan Shapiro, Gilbert Murray

Study Guide
Guide cover image

The World's Best Poetry, Volume 5 (Part 1): Nature

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Mary Mapes Dodge, George Darley, William Motherwell, George Eliot, John Milton, Clement Scott, George Arnold, Robert Browning, James Thomson, Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr., William Ernest Henley, Denis Florence MacCarthy, William Cullen Bryant, John Sterling, John Clare, Izaak Walton, Matthew Arnold, James Whitcomb Riley, Percy Bysshe Shelley, Edward Jenner, William Gilmore Simms, Charles G.D. Roberts, Henry Timrod, William Cox Bennett, Bliss Carman, Archibald Lampman, George MacDonald, William Shakespeare, Matthias Claudius, Alexander Hume, James Beattie, Thomas Gray, Craig Franklin, John Cunningham, Norman Rowland Gale, James Gates Percival, Joel Benton, Thomas Heywood, Richard Hovey, Anna Boynton Averill, Charles Sangster, Thomas Wentworth Higginson, Dora Hill Read Goodale, Joanna Baillie, Thomas Nashe, Henry Wotton, Geoffrey Chaucer, Thomas Bailey Aldrich, John Howard Bryant, John G.C. Brainard, Thomas Campbell, Eduard Mörike, Algernon Charles Swinburne, William Morris, David Gray, William Cowper, W.B. Yeats, William Prescott Foster, Richard Henry Dana Jr., Thomas Carew, William Howitt, John B. Tabb, Jones Very, Henry Fielding, Barry Cornwall, Samuel Daniel, John Keats, Homer, George Francis Savage-Armstrong, John Leyden, Tomas Peter, Thomas Hood, Philip Pendleton Cooke, Richard Watson Gilder, Ethelwyn Wetherald, William Wordsworth, Euripides, Joseph Blanco White, Edmund Clarence Stedman, G.W. Pettee, Robert Tannahill, Ebenezer Jones, John Chalkhill, Abraham Cowley, Paul Hamilton Hayne, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, James Russell Lowell, Andrew Marvell, Ralph Waldo Emerson, William Lisle Bowles, Leanne Yau, Charles Harpur, Sonia, Edith M. Thomas, Charles Kingsley, Lord Byron, Ebenezer Elliott, Benjamin Franklin Taylor, Richard Henry Horne, Jason in Panama, Walter Scott, Hartley Coleridge, Duncan Campbell Scott, Alfred Tennyson, John Davies, Aristophanes, Charles G. Eastman, Elizabeth Roberts MacDonald, William Browne, Robert Burns, Samuel Rogers, Ludwig H.C. Hölty, Wilfrid Scawen Blunt, Celia Laighton Thaxter