The most "modern" of the three great Greek tragedians
The youngest and most iconoclastic of the three great Greek tragedians. He turned his gaze from the great deeds of heroes to the darkness and passion of the human heart, writing madness, jealousy, and humiliated women. In Medea, a woman betrayed by her husband takes revenge by killing her own children — this unflinching stare into extreme psychology shocked his age, yet made him the distant ancestor of later realism and psychological drama. The gods in his plays are often cruel and absurd, betraying a deep doubt of traditional belief.
Medea puts a foreign woman at center stage, denouncing how men and the city have wronged her, then taking the most terrible revenge. Euripides does not judge, only presents — he swapped the tragic protagonist from a demigod hero to an ordinary person who can hurt, hate, and lose control.
Below are how modern works borrow or reinterpret this name or story — not the original material. The two differ, so keep them apart.