There are two reasons why he has been loved.  First, among his countrymen and the rest of the world, because, as a master of pathos, he has no equal among the dramatists of his nation, and, as some declare, no superior in the literature of the world.  Second, by the moderns, especially the English, because they see in him the promise of the future.  He is now regarded as anticipating in many ways the Elizabethan drama.  Churton Collins has well said, ’But in nothing does he come so nearly home to the modern world as in his studies and presentation of women.  In Shakespeare and in Shakespeare alone have we a gallery of female portraits comparable in range and elaboration to what he has left us.  He has painted them under almost all conditions which can elicit and develop the expression of natural character:  under the infatuation of illicit and consuming passion at war with the better self, as in Phaedra; under the provocation of such wrongs and outrages as transform Medea into a tigress and Hecuba into a fiend; under all the appeals to their proper heroism, the spirit of self-sacrifice and self-abnegating devotion, as in Macaria, Polyxena, Iphigenia, and Alcestis.’

He was, however, not popular in Athens.  Why?  Because he was ahead of the phase of civilization and culture represented at that time in a city which was on the verge of its ruin.  He denounced cruelty and oppression, he disliked war, he dwelt upon the virtues of slaves and menials, he was sympathetic with the innocence and helplessness of young children, and with all that the gentler affections can inspire or achieve.

In reading the ‘Alcestis’ several important points should be borne in mind in regard to the play: 

1.  Its production.  It is the earliest of the extant plays of Euripides and was brought out B.C. 439 in the Archonship of Glaucinus.  It was, according to the custom of the Greeks, entered for competition in the public prizes and performed in the great theater of Dionysius, supported by the state.  The competitor was obliged to send in three tragedies called a trilogy, together with what was called a satyric play.  This last might be related to the tragedies or be quite independent, as they usually were in Sophocles and Euripides.  The satyric play was named from the satyrs or attendants upon Bacchus, and was a farce or burlesque intended to relieve the feelings of the spectators after the tragedies.  The ‘Alcestis’ was entered by Euripides as a satyric play, but it only in parts approaches the characteristics of such a play.  In other parts it has the dignity and beauty of a tragedy.  In fact it is more nearly like a comedy in the modern sense of the word.

2.  The structure of the play.  This is like that of a typical Greek tragedy with one exception.  It opens, as is customary with Euripides, with a monologue, which explains the plot and the position of affairs, spoken by one of the characters, Apollo.  Otherwise, it is like a regular tragedy, presenting two sorts of action, that of a chorus consisting of men or women whose functions were to comment on the action, draw morals from it, express sympathy with the actors, and that of the regular dialogue.