euripides medea part 1 medea what’s it about? background production, playwright, context, myth a...
TRANSCRIPT
Euripides Medea Part 1Medea
what’s it about?
Backgroundproduction, playwright, context, myth
A Different Kind of Tragedy?
Agon
tragic sophistic
A Different Kind of Tragedy
Euripides’ Medea
What’s it About?
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What’s it About? (themes, issues) revenge - lover scorned
• family ties twisted love justice (personal)
• vendetta revenge
• betrayal• love lost
outcast• barbarian• self-service• pride
betrayal / unfaithfulness• fear of outsiders
origin, roots (m’s betrayal) broken promises – marriage hubristic jason
• deserves punishment meaning of marriage
• m: = love• j: = social-ladder, secure
BackgroundProduction, Playwright, Context,
Myth
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Playwright, Play Euripides
• 485/4 or 480–ca. 406
• 22 entries
• 4 wins
Production• 431 BCE
• Patriotic themes??– “From of old the children of
Erechtheus are / Splendid” (Chorus, p. 27)
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Medea’s Background
M e d ea(so rce re ss )
A p sy rtus
A e e tes(k in g C o lch is )
C irc e(g o d d e ss -so rce re ss)
H e lio s (S u n) Chariot of the Sun
maps
maps
Play Analysis(pages refer to Dover
ed.)
prologue (pp. 1 ff.)
• Nurse, Tutor, Medea (off stage)
parodos (5 ff.)
• Chorus, Nurse, Medea (off stage)
episode 1 (8 ff.)
• Medea, Creon – entrapment
stasimon 1 (14 f.)
• misogyny, women’s silence reversed
episode 2 (15 ff.)
• AGŌN: Jason, Medea
stasimon 2 (20 f.)
• “may safe marriage, reasonable love be mine”
episode 3 (21 ff.)
• Medea, Aegeus
stasimon 3 (27 f.)• Athens no land for Medea
episode 4 (28 ff.)• Jason, Medea – entrapment
stasimon 4 (31 f.)• murder approaches
episode 5 (32 ff.)• Tutor, Medea’s monologue
anapestic (chanted) interlude (35 f.)• Chorus: sorrows of parenthood
episode 6 (36 ff.)• Medea, Messenger (poisonings
described)stasimon 5 (40 f.)
• desperate hopes (dochmiacs)exodos (41 ff.)
• catastrophe, Medea’s dea ex machina
Euripidean Dramaturgy
A Different Kind of Tragedy?
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Euripidean Dramaturgy Realism Anachronism Intellectualism Experimentalism
• genre-bending Originality Plotting, suspense Framing-closure
• prologue• deus ex machina
Euripides
13
A Different Kind of Tragedy? “I was at the place / Where the old draught-
players sit, by the holy fountain, …” (Tutor, p. 3)
“For not on us did Phoebus (= Apollo), lord of music, / Bestow the lyre’s divine / Power, for otherwise I should have sung an answer / To the other sex” (Chorus, 14)
“When love is in excess / It brings a man no honor” (Chorus, 20)
Agōn: Tragic Sophistic
Jason vs. Medea (pp. 15 ff.)
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Character Dynamics … chorus helps us side
with her helps see m’s side j is determined
• blaming the victim
j maybe thinks he’s justified
j feels no guilt at all• covering bases
j ignorant he was feeling
guilty!• damage control
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Sophistic
sophos sophia sophistēs sophistic
• sophism• sophistry
“To make the weaker argument appear the stronger” –
Protagoras
Agon Analysis (pp. 15 ff.) Medea: arguments
1. M. helped-saved J.– at cost
2. J. broke vows.
3. Where to go?– shameful betrayal
Jason: arguments1. Aphrodite saved J.
– though Medea helped
2. M. gained more than gave.– by moving to Greece
3. Prudent match (argument from expediency).– for J., for M., for children
4. Women as trouble. (Tips his hand?)
Medea• “a hypocrite who is too glib
only multiplies the danger that it puts him in”
• “you felt your glory tarnished by an aging, oriental wife”
• J. should have persuaded M. Jason
• “has nothing to do with women”• generous motives