Editing Euripides (section)

=== Language===
[[File:Eugène Ferdinand Victor Delacroix 031.jpg|thumb|right|''Medea About to Murder Her Children'' by [[Eugène Ferdinand Victor Delacroix]] (1862)]]

The spoken language of the Euripidean plays is not fundamentally different in style from that of Aeschylus or Sophocles{{emdash}}it employs [[poetic meter]]s, a rarefied vocabulary, fullness of expression, complex syntax, and ornamental figures, all aimed at representing an elevated style.<ref>Justina Gregory, "Euripidean Tragedy", in ''A Companion to Greek Tragedy'', Justina Gregory (ed.), Blackwell Publishing Ltd (2005), p. 256</ref> But its rhythms are somewhat freer, and more natural, than that of his predecessors, and the vocabulary has been expanded to allow for intellectual and psychological subtleties. Euripides has been hailed as a great lyric poet.<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Lattimore |first1=Richmond |title=Euripides as Lyrist |journal=Poetry |date=December 1937 |volume=51 |issue=3 |pages=160–64}}</ref> In ''[[Medea (play)|Medea]]'', for example, he composed for his city, Athens, "the noblest of her songs of praise".<ref>''Medea'' 824 sqq.; Denys L. Page, ''Euripides: Medea'', Oxford University Press (1976), Introduction page vii</ref> His lyrical skills are not just confined to individual poems: "A play of Euripides is a musical whole...one song echoes motifs from the preceding song, while introducing new ones."<ref>L. P. E. Parker, ''Euripides: Alcestis'', Oxford University Press (2007), Introduction p. lxxii</ref> For some critics, the lyrics often seem dislocated from the action, but the extent and significance of this is "a matter of scholarly debate".<ref>B. M. Knox, "Euripides" in ''The Cambridge History of Classical Literature I: Greek Literature'', P. Easterling and B. Knox (ed.s), Cambridge University Press (1985), p. 338</ref> See [[Euripides#Chronology|Chronology]] for details about his style.