Although Hypsipyle is one of Euripides’ lost tragedies, it has the largest surviving collection of fragments of all his lost plays. Until the early 20th century, the play was only known from a few fragments published by Nauck (1856). However, in May 1906, Oxyrynchus Papyrus 852 was discovered, now housed in the Bodleian Library. This papyrus was produced in around 81–96 AD, and contains three complete columns of sixty lines each and many smaller fragments. It mainly covers the first half of the play; the second half, unfortunately, is not as well-preserved. The discovery of the papyrus was followed by its publication in 1908 by Grenfell and Hunt. Since then, the play has gained more popularity with a growing number of studies on it. Italie (1923), Bond (1963), Cockle (1987), Diggle…

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Citation: Gerolemou, Maria. "Hypsipyle". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 21 August 2017 [https://www.litencyc.com/php/sworks.php?rec=true&UID=13356, accessed 29 March 2024.]

13356 Hypsipyle 3 Historical context notes are intended to give basic and preliminary information on a topic. In some cases they will be expanded into longer entries as the Literary Encyclopedia evolves.

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