A Competition of ‘choregoi’ in Euripides’ ‘Trojan Women’. Dramatic Structure and Intertextuality

International audienceI wish to focus on the structure of the Trojan Women’s parodos and first episode in order to argue that it is strongly influenced by Euripides’ response to the Agamemnon and that this response consists both in turning Aeschylus’ use of myth and lyrics into spectacular drama and in undermining the religious and cosmic pattern of the Agamemnon. I will start by examining the complex dramatic structure of this first part of the Trojan Women, especially the striking changes in tone occurring while Cassandra is on stage. I will then reflect upon the conflict of authority thus created between Cassandra’s inspired voice and that of the suffering Hecuba. This conflict, I believe, is Euripides’ way of dramatizing the mortals’ inability to grasp the meaning of their actions and woes