Read "Euripides and his Age" by Gilbert Murray online for free on Textopian. Full text with search, annotations, highlights, and AI-powered reading aids.
Critics have used various words to describe the change of mood which followed the _Trojan Women_. They speak of a period of despair, pessimism, progressive bitterness, _Verzweiflung und Weltschmertz_. But such phrases seem to me misleading. In the first place I do not think they describe quite truly even the particular plays they are meant to describe; in the second, they do not allow for the great variety which subsists in the plays of this period. The mood of the _Trojan Women_ is not exactly pessimism or despair; and whatever it is, it does not colour all the subsequent plays.
The plays after 415 fall into two main divisions. First the works of pure fancy or romance, in which the poet seems to turn intentionally away from reality. Such are the _Iphigenia in Tauris_, the _Helena_ and the _Andromeda_; they move among far seas and strange adventures and they have happy endings. Next there are the true tragedies, close to life, ruthlessly probing the depths of human nature; not more acutely bitter than such earlier works as the _Medea_ and _Hecuba_, but with a bitterness more profound because it is comparatively free from indignation. The glory has fallen away and the burning anger with it. The poor miserable heroes and heroines. what else can you expect of them? Rage is no good; punishment worse than useless. The road to healing lies elsewhere.