Key facts
- Written by
- Euripides
- Chorus
- Old men
- Characters
- Apollo , Thanatos / Death , Maidservant , Alcestis , Admetus , Eumelus , Heracles , Servant, Pheres
- Date premiered
- 438 BC
- Place premiered
- Athens
- Original language
- Ancient Greek
- Genre
- Tragedy
- Setting
- Pherae in Thessaly
via Wikipedia infobox
~12 min read
Encyclopedic overview
Alcestis (/ælˈsɛstɪs/; Ancient Greek: Ἄλκηστις, Alkēstis) is an Athenian tragedy by the ancient Greek playwright Euripides. It was first produced at the City Dionysia festival in 438 BC. Euripides presented it as the final part of a tetralogy of unconnected plays in the competition of tragedies, for which he won second prize; this arrangement was exceptional, as the fourth part was normally a satyr play. Its ambiguous, tragicomic tone—which may be "cheerfully romantic" or "bitterly ironic"—has earned it the label of a "problem play." Alcestis is, possibly excepting the Rhesus, the oldest surviving work by Euripides, although at the time of its first performance he had been producing plays for 17 years.
Events prior to the start of the play
Excerpted from Wikipedia’s “Alcestis” article, available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 licence.