Hysteria in Euripides' Tragedies


Görmez A., Görmez M. B.

1. International Anglo-American Cultural and Literary Studies , Mersin, Türkiye, 16 - 18 Kasım 2022, ss.141

  • Yayın Türü: Bildiri / Özet Bildiri
  • Basıldığı Şehir: Mersin
  • Basıldığı Ülke: Türkiye
  • Sayfa Sayıları: ss.141
  • Van Yüzüncü Yıl Üniversitesi Adresli: Evet

Özet

Ancient Greek tragedies often deal with heroes‘ passions, tragic flaws, misinterpretations, overreactions, and afterwards, their punishments by Gods in return. These punishments may take place in different forms such as the disempowerment, or deportation of the hero, or troubling their mental faculties. Tragic errors are basically followed by hysterical crises. Hysteria, with different definitions and covering a wide variety of situations, is, in general, the name given to sudden emotional changes. Beyond a simple theme in the ancient Greek tragedy, hysteria can also appear as a physical destructive force that leads to the downfall of the tragic hero. What happens in these plays mostly revolves around the characters, who go crazy as a result of hysteria, because the character in focus can sometimes commit terrible crimes by killing people and even their closest ones, under the spell of insanity. Another issue that is common to almost all these tragedies is that these crises are triggered by the intervention of the gods, and this process continues until the characters perform their fatal deeds. This study aims to examine the hysterical crises, along with the consequences experienced by the tragic heroes in such plays as Medea, Heracles and Orestes by Euripides, one of the ancient Greek tragedy writers.

Key Words: Euripides, Hysteria, Medea, Heracles, Orestes.