University Studies 



Vol. XVIII JULY-OCT., 1918 Nos. 3, 4 



THE SUPERNATURAL IN THE TRAGEDIES OF 

 EURIPIDES AS ILLUSTRATED IN PRAYERS, 

 CURSES, OATHS, ORACLES, PROPH- 

 ECIES, DREAMS, AND VISIONS 



BY ERNEST HEINRICH KLOTSCHE 



The Spirit of the Greek drama is preeminently reHgious. Not 

 only in its beginnings, but throughout the most flourishing period 

 of its history, it was in intimate connection with the supernatural 

 which entered into its very heart, and constituted one of its essen- 

 tial elements. The theatrical representations at Athens, even in 

 the days of Euripides and Aristophanes, were constituent parts 

 of a great religious celebration. 



The presence of the supernatural element in Greek tragedy 

 involved a definite attitude toward it on the part of each indi- 

 vidual dramatist. The strength of personality which ^schylus, 

 Sophocles, and Euripides possessed made them voice their own 

 conceptions concerning the supernatural. 



Mschylus, himself profoundly religious, accepted the popular 

 religion unhesitatingly trying to reconcile it with the more ad- 

 vanced conceptions of his time, by purifying its grossness and 

 harmonizing its various inconsistencies, thus imparting to the re- 

 ligion a new intense vitality. The moral government of all things, 

 the misery and mystery of sin, the power and mysterious dealings 

 of the gods, their terrible and inscrutable wrath, their certain ven- 

 geance upon sinners form the background of his thought. A 



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