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A study of words relating to youth and old age in the plays of euripides and its special implications for Euripides' Suppliant Women

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Abstract

This study focuses on the imagery of youth and old age in the plays of Euripides, especially the Suppliant Women, considering frequently used words in each play according to a formula developed by Guiraud. The study identifies a motif, the rejuvenation theme, an elaborate interaction between young and old, in the Suppliant Women and in: Alcestis, Heraclidae, Andromache, Hecabe, and Heracles. The difference between the use of neos (young, new) in the Suppliant Women and in the other plays is statistically significant. This word helps Euripides contrast two different kinds of youth: the fearful, rash, and animalistic (Theban); and that which has been properly schooled and led (Athenian). The greatest ground in the Suppliant Women for praising Athens is in her treatment of the young as a politically valuable force.

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Eva M. Thury is associate professor of Humanities and Communications at Drexel University in Philadelphia, Pa. She is currently working with computers to produce a concordance of the Latin prose work of John Milton. She has described that process in the Winter 1987–88 issue of Academic Computing (volume 2.4, pages 6–9, 57–61). She has also recently published in Rheinisches Museum für Philologie, Arethusa and American Journal of Philology.

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Thury, E.M. A study of words relating to youth and old age in the plays of euripides and its special implications for Euripides' Suppliant Women . Comput Hum 22, 293–306 (1988). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00118605

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