Monody in Euripides: Character and the Liberation of Form in Late Greek Tragedy

As a professor of linguistics, I’m drawn to examples of how fields outside my own approach questions of emotion and communication. So, I was thrilled to find “Monody in Euripides” in which Catenaccio draws on her extensive knowledge and experience as a classicist, theater director, and performer to explore the music and emotion of ancient dramas. Through a series of close readings of four of Euripides’ late tragedies, Catenaccio not only draws our collective attention towards the importance of monody in Greek drama, but also offers a fresh perspective on the use of music to evoke emotion. Through its clear exposition of texts and rigorous analysis, “Monody in Euripides” provides valuable insights into Greek drama that will be welcomed by experienced and novice scholars alike. I’d highly recommend it to scholars of any field looking for compelling examinations of music, communication, and emotion.

In Monody in Euripides, Catenaccio takes on a notoriously illusive subject at the crossroads of Classics and Musicology. The use of monody, that is solo song, was not only a narrative strategy in Greek tragedy, it was also an aesthetic one which later inspired the most well-known union of song and speech in Western art music: opera. The difficulties of this subject are very well known: without many examples of precise musical notation from that period, we need to reconstruct what these songs within plays actually sounded like from various types of fragmentary evidence. Catenaccio tackles this subject not only as a practical project in reconstruction but also as an opportunity to ask why the solo singing voice moves us so powerfully. Her approach is novel in its blend of linguistic, musical, and dramatic approaches to the multi-sensory communicative strategies in Greek tragedy.

A well-written and meticulously researched work. The book considers monody through many lenses to provide a detailed picture of Euripides' innovative use of solo song. Clear and vivid - what a lovely book!