This study attempts to interpret the tragedy Hercules by Euripides, combining interpretative tools from Aristotelian poetics and contemporary theories of dramatic texts.

Each of the three parts corresponds to one of the three thematic roles (savior, pursuer, supplicant) that the central hero successively assumes, which form the motif of supplication, serving as the foundation for the dramatic organization and thematic coherence of this drama.

Since this is a tragedy that contains a maximum degree of synthesis of oppositions - as indicated in the title of the book - within each of the eight sections, the conflicts and identifications of dramatic programs and worlds, the ambiguities of appearance and the contradictions of language, the techniques of expanding and condensing the dimensions of space and time, and the interrelationship of textual points with each other as well as with points from their surrounding context are examined.

Finally, the issue of the synthesis of tragic elements even with comic elements is explored in the Appendix of the book.

[Excerpt from the text on the back cover of the edition]