1. Croally, N.T.  Euripidean Polemic: The Trojan Women and the function of Tragedy. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1994. (Christy Jen)

      N.T. Croally examines the didactic function of Euripidean tragedy in the cultural and dramatic context of war. He explores this topic by concentrating on The Trojan Women (Troades). In this book, Croally establishes his argument by analyzing tragedy in sections of war ideology and production, polarities such as Greeks and barbarians, the causes and ends of war, and space and time of the play and war itself.  
In terms of war ideology, Croally first talks about “the didactic production”. He argues that the didactic function of tragedy is to indicate the important conditions of production of tragedy and historical point of both authorial and audience expectations. For his argument, he uses works from Plato, Socrates, Aristotle, and Euripides. According to Croally, tragedy performs its didactic function by examining ideology, defined as the self-definition of the citizens. In other words, Euripidean tragedy uses war as a site for self-examination.  His chosen play, Troades exhibits his argument most completely. 
      Croally continues to teach about tragedy by examining polarities that exist within the text. All tragedies contain a series of mutually-reinforced polarities such as men and women and Greek and barbarians He claims that Euripides questions these polarities in order to examine the self-definition of the Athenian ideology. However, Croally also points out that there is a difference in Euripidean tragedies, particularly Troades. He claims that characters in Troades encounter polarities because they are an effect of war. One of these polarities is the difficulty of otherness and this is also the agony of the war for the characters.  
 In his argument for the causes and end of war, Croally introduces the term “agon”. There is always a winner and loser in war. War itself is an agon; one can think of “agon” as competitive athletic games, debates, and tests. Croally relates Euripidean tragedy to “agon” by arguing that “agon” provides self-definition of Athenian ideology through comparison with others. Croally uses Hecuba, Helen, and Troades to prove his point. 
      Unlike other Euripidean tragic authors, Croally does not go into lengthy discussions about the common themes such as feminism and oligarchy. He offers a new interpretation of Euripides’ Troades; he focuses on the examination of the Athenian society and not the play’s dramatic structure. In analyzing Euripidean tragedy, Croally allows his readers to recognize the complexity of how the tragic form and Euripides responded to the world. 

2. Dunn, Francis. Tragedy’s End: Closure and Innovation in Euripidean Drama. New York: Oxford University Press, 1996. (Noemi Agduyeng)

 In Francis Dunn’s Tragedy’s End: Closure and Innovation in Euripidean Drama, Dunn states that “the plot is not a single action but a sequence of episodes, it contains no major reversal of fortunes, and it lacks movement or direction” (Dunn, 101).  Dunn also states that Trojan Women “begins at the end and remains stuck there” (Dunn, 102). The plays starts with the Trojans already defeated and end with them being killed or taken as slaves by the Greeks. While this supports Dunn’s claim of immobility of the play, he also says that “the only movement in the play is a rhythm of hope and despair” which is very true. The women still have hope yet their hopes are also stolen away from them as they discover their future and the future of their children.  Although Dunn asserts that there is no major reversal of fortunes however, I strongly disagree since Andromache suffers a major reversal by the Greeks killing her son Astyanax. Hecuba also undergoes a major reversal through the discovery of Polyxena’s death and the death of her grandson Astyanax. Hecuba goes from the status of being a mother to having no children left. Dunn also claims that the closure of the play Trojan Women is “irregular and disruptive.” He argues how “Rather than framing the action with interventions from a divine or superhuman sphere, the opening scene combines prologue speech with deus ex machina, exhausting the devices of beginning and end before the play has begun” (Dunn, 104). The gods Poseidon and Athena leave after telling the audience what will surely happen. Therefore, the plot starts off “not by generating interest in what is to come, but with a closing gesture that marks off the action from a sequel outside it” (Dunn 106). In this respect I agree with Dunn thinking this is irregular compared to other plays however, I also thought that the play’s structure is what makes it interesting because it’s so unique and unlike other plays. 

3. Fletcher, Judith. “Women and oaths in Euripides” Theatre Journal 55.1 (2003): 29-44. (Christy Jen)

      This article establishes the argument that women will eventually gain control of men’s language and action in the three Euripidean tragedies, Medea, Hippolytus, and Iphigenia at Aulis.  Fletcher provides evidence by using speeches from these women. All three plays are women’s play; women come to dominate not only language but also the play script itself. 
      In her work, Fletcher reminds her readers that oaths sworn by men to women are ratified by gods. In other words, men automatically enter into a contract with gods by swearing an oath to women. Fletcher claims that Euripides empowers his women by giving them a voice in the play. Women with spoken words are not the norm in the Athenian society. Therefore, giving them a voice also calls for “perlocutionary” consequences, which is the unpredictable outcomes of speech. 
      Furthermore, Fletcher suggests that the role of the Chorus should not be neglected. The Chorus is made up of the rest of the women in town (meaning that the dominating female characters are excluded). Consequently, effectiveness of oaths sworn by women to women is sustained by the intervention of the female Chorus. 
      This article is very helpful in topics pertaining to how Euripidean female characters become authorial figures. That is, representation of women in Euripidean plays shows how Euripidean plot devices and the oath can turn female characters into authors of the text.  

4. Sienkewicz, Thomas. “Euripides’ Trojan Women: An Interpretation.” Helios 6 (1978): 80-95. (Noemi Agduyeng)

 “Euripides’ Trojan Women: An Interpretation” by Thomas Sienkewicz found in the Journal of Helios discuses how Trojan Women is a play about “suffering, not hope, a play of the collective and ironic fate of the Trojan nation” (Sienkewicz, 93). Sienkewicz emphasizes the chorus of Trojan Women to be a collective and “unifying force of the play”. Furthermore, “the chorus is the only principal in the Trojan Women that adequately incorporates the identity of the entire city and its tragedy. The individual characters are included in this collective tragedy, but they each give only partial aspects of it” (Sienkewicz, 85). This play does not just depict the sorrow of one person but the fall of an entire society therefore, in that logic I do agree that it is collective. Sienkewicz also points out that this play is full of different ironies. For instance the irony of Hecuba as a queen “reduced to the ironic mode of slave” (Sienkewicz, 90). Another irony the writer points out is the audience knows that the Greeks are plotting their own destructions but the Greeks do not know it themselves. The most interesting irony to me that the writer points out is “the irony of a world in which those who those who triumph and conquer and win their will are, if anything, more profoundly discontented and miserable than those whom they have defeated” (Sienkewicz, 93). I never though this play had so many ironies until I read this journal article.