This study explores how in central plays of Euripides – namely, Alcestis, Hippolytus, Helen, and Bacchae – bodies, landscapes, and objects (both seen on stage and described in speeches, dialogues, and choral odes) serve as media for assessing affective states, materializing the characters’ feelings and sensations and hence enabling the audience to vividly perceive them. My focus is grounded in the ancient conceptions of bodies and the senses in material from the Pre-Socratic and the Hippocratic writings, including theories about how the surrounding environment influences bodily types. It is also underpinned by theoretical perspectives that have come to prominence in recent research in ancient literature and culture. First, it draws on insights from phenomenology, aesthetics, and affective theory that in ancient drama highlight embodiment, synaesthesia, and the circulation of affects among characters and spectators. Second, it engages with works inspired by the new materialisms, which have produced a new attention to the mutual and symbiotic relationship between humans and nonhuman entities. Finally, it is based on the “enactive” approach to cognition, which makes a compelling case for visualization (e.g., spectators’ imagination of the things sung, spoken, or narrated) as grounded in the active, embodied structure of experience. Building on such theories, I posit that Euripides’ plays illustrate how the characters’ feelings and emotions combine with sensory indicators (sight, taste, smell, and touch), so that they operate as visible marks of states usually conceived of as inner. These states are, I suggest, exteriorized not only on bodies but also in their surroundings, such that landscapes as mapped onto the dramatic stage and objects with which the characters interact function as supplements to embodied affective manifestations. In addition to onstage action, I focus on how Euripides’ language triggers a strong resonance in the spectators’ imagination. In this regard, my argument takes up the insights of ancient critics such as Longinus, who has praised Euripides’ ability to generate “emotion” (τὸ παθητικόν) and “excitement” (τὸ συγκεκινημένον) in the audience through “visualization” (φαντασία) and “vividness” (ἐνάργεια). Thus, I examine how references to onstage performance and visualizing language interact, giving the spectators a full picture of the dramatic action. In Alcestis, I explore how embodiment, sensorial phenomena, and physical interactions put the characters’ feelings of pain and grief on prominent display, eliciting the audience’s sensory reaction. In Hippolytus, I examine how the characters’ emotions blend into the surroundings, such that forms, colors, and textures of landscape and objects allow the spectators to perceive inner states more forcefully. In Helen, I investigate how material and nonhuman things, such as rivers, plants, costumes, weapons, statues, ships connect to the characters as parts of an affective entanglement that heightens the experiential appeal of the characters’ feelings and sensations. In the Bacchae, I regard Dionysus’ action as an affective force that spreads throughout the world of the play, cracks, and mutates things, including human and animal bodies, natural elements, and objects. This action creates an enmeshment between things, which is embodied by the thyrsus topped with Pentheus’ head (mask) that gives the spectators a keen sense of the multiple, productive, and transformative nature of Dionysus’ power. In conclusion, this study argues that bodies, landscapes, and objects represent the privileged sites for exploring the affective exchange between the characters and the audience, refining our understanding of the intensity, impact, and reception of the Euripidean theater.

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Le Roi Roger, chef-d’oeuvre du compositeur polonais Karol Szymanowski (1882-1937), constitue une œuvre-clé pour le développement de son auteur. Situé dans la Sicile médiévale, théâtre de la confrontation de nombreuses civilisations (notamment grecque, byzantine, arabe et normande), l’opéra se veut mosaïque de cultures (interculturalité) et des sources artistiquement variées (pluridisciplinarité). Allant des Bacchantes d’Euripide jusqu’à la philosophie nietzschéenne et de la musique folklorique des Tatras au drame wagnérien, ce kaléidoscope de sources est articulé par quelques idées fondamentales. L’étude proposée considère l’opéra, selon les termes mêmes du compositeur, dans l’opposition binaire, entre d’« immenses contrastes et richesses » et de « mondes […] unis » par le biais de procédés d’intégration devant faire accéder cette mosaïque au statut d’Œuvre. La présente étude est une série d’éclairages, seul moyen de considérer l’opéra si complexe en entier. Confrontant les projets et le résultat, elle s’organise au rythme des oppositions, approchant différents domaines dans leur épaisseur (étude des sources variées) et leur rôle dans l’œuvre achevée. / King Roger, a masterpiece of the Polish composer Karol Szymanowski (1882-1937) is a key-work to the development of his author. Taking place in the medieval Sicily, setting for the confrontation of many civilisations (in particular Greek, Byzantine, Arabic and Norman), the opera presents itself as a mosaic of cultures (interculturality) and of varied artistic sources (pluridisciplinarity). Extending from the Bacchae of Euripides to nietzschean philosophy and from the music of the Tatra Mountains to the wagnerian drama, this kaleidoscope of sources is articulated by a few fundamental ideas. The present study considers the opera, according to the words of the composer himself, in the binary opposition between « great contrasts and riches » and the « united worlds » by means of particular methods of integration which rise this mosaic to the status of a Work of Art.The present study gives a series of insights into the opera, the only way of considering a work of such complexity in its entirety. Confronting the projects and the result, it is organized by the rhythm of the oppositions in presence, approaching different arts by their multiple layers (through the study of varied sources) and their part in the final work.

The Classical Tradition, now more commonly known as Classical Reception, is a growing sub-discipline in Classics which seeks to trace the influence of Greco-Roman culture in post-classical works. While scholars have already done much to analyze specific texts, and many of these analyses are theoretically complex, there has yet to be a review of the theories these scholars employ. The purpose of this study is to provide researchers with a theoretical tool kit which allows them greater scope and nuance when analyzing usages of classical mythology. It examines five different approaches scholars have used: adaptation, allusion, intertextuality, reception, and typology. Each theory is followed by an example from Spanish literature or film: Apollo and Daphne in Calderón's El laurel de Apolo, Orpheus in Unamuno's Niebla, Dionysus in Unamuno's San Manuel Bueno, mártir, Persephone in del Torro's El laberinto del fauno, and the werewolf in Naschy's Waldemar Daninsky films. This thesis argues that a critical pluralist approach best captures the nuance and variety of usages of classical mythology. This allows for both objective and subjective readings of texts as well as explicit and implicit connections to classical mythology.