Controversy
According to Gilbert Murray in his introduction to the play, passages from Rhesus were quoted by early Alexandrian writers. However, there was some doubt shed on the authenticity of the work by ancient introductions. The first to fully dispute that Rhesus was a play by Euripides was L. C. Valckenaer in his Phoenissae (1755) and Diatribe in Euripidis deperditorum dramatum reliquias (1767). Stylistic differences are one of the main arguments of the controversy. Murray argued that the differences in style could be attributed to a younger, less-developed Euripides. Or the differences could be attributed to it being a reproduction by Euripides' son or other contemporary playwright.
Its authenticity was defended in a book-length study by William Ritchie (1964). His conclusions were opposed by Eduard Fraenkel.
Modern scholarship agrees with the classical authorities and ascribes the play to Euripides.
Read more about this topic: Rhesus (play)
Famous quotes containing the word controversy:
“Ours was a highly activist administration, with a lot of controversy involved ... but I’m not sure that it would be inconsistent with my own political nature to do it differently if I had it to do all over again.”
—Jimmy Carter (James Earl Carter, Jr.)
“And therefore, as when there is a controversy in an account, the parties must by their own accord, set up for right Reason, the Reason of some Arbitrator, or Judge, to whose sentence, they will both stand, or their controversy must either come to blows, or be undecided, for want of a right Reason constituted by Nature; so is it also in all debates of what kind soever.”
—Thomas Hobbes (1579–1688)