Saturday, September 06, 2014
Jowett on Euripides
Evelyn Abbott and Lewis Campbell, The Life and Letters of Benjamin Jowett, Vol. II (London: John Murray, 1897), p. 68:
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Jowett remained at Munich for the greater part of July [1875], occupying his leisure hours in reading Euripides. When he returned to Oxford at the end of the month, he was overflowing with Euripides and his faults; for that he had any merits he would never allow. 'I have been reading Euripides again,' he said,'and I think even less of him than I did: he is immoral when he is irreligious, and when he is religious he is more immoral still.' Pages of his note-books are filled with depreciative criticisms of the poet. 'Monotonous, insipid, feeble, immoral; endless commonplace—sophisticated and affected in expression, as well as in thought—undignified and exaggerated—Homer and other tragedians mixed with puerilities.'
