Gilbert Murray’s Reading of Euripides

Of all the scholars and critics who have interpreted Euripides in the last hundred years no one – at least in the English-speaking world – can match Gilbert Murray (1866–1957) in terms of influence and popularity. But Murray’s most substantial work on Euripides was done before the First World War, and there is something to be said for trying, at this distance, to put his reading in context and to account for the remarkably strong impact that it made both in its own time and for many years afterwards. The task is all the more relevant nowadays, when Murray is more likely to attract attention as a ‘Cambridge Ritualist’ than for his reading of Euripides, and we need to make a real effort to grasp what made this so distinctive. 1