Transcript Oedipus the King part II

Medea
what’s it about?
Background
production,
playwright,
context, myth
A Different
Kind of
Tragedy?
Agon
tragic sophistic
Euripides Medea Part 1
A Different Kind of Tragedy
Euripides’ Medea
What’s it About?
What’s it About? (themes, issues)

revenge - lover scorned
•



vendetta
revenge
•
•
betrayal
love lost
outcast
•
•
•
family ties
twisted love
justice (personal)
•


betrayal / unfaithfulness
•

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
fear of outsiders
origin, roots (m’s betrayal)
broken promises – marriage
hubristic jason
•

barbarian
self-service
pride
deserves punishment
meaning of marriage
•
•
m: = love
j: = social-ladder, secure
3
Background
Production, Playwright, Context,
Myth
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)
5
maps
Medea’s Background
H e lio s (S u n)
A e etes
(kin g C o lch is)
M e d ea
(so rce re ss)
Chariot of the Sun
C irc e
(g o d d e ss-so rce re ss)
A p syrtus
7
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?
Euripidean Dramaturgy




Realism
Anachronism
Intellectualism
Experimentalism
• genre-bending
 Originality
 Plotting, suspense
 Framing-closure
• prologue
• deus ex machina
Euripides
11
A Different Kind of Tragedy?
 “I was at the place / Where the old draughtplayers 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)
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Agōn: Tragic Sophistic
Jason vs. Medea (pp. 15 ff.)
Character Dynamics …
 chorus helps us side
with her
 helps see m’s side
 j is determined
 j ignorant
 he was feeling
guilty!
• damage control
• blaming the victim
 j maybe thinks he’s
justified
 j feels no guilt at all
• covering bases
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Sophistic
 sophos
 sophia
 sophistēs
 sophistic
• sophism
• sophistry
“To make the weaker argument
appear the stronger” –
Protagoras
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Agon Analysis (pp. 15 ff.)

Medea: arguments
1.

at cost
J. broke vows.
Where to go?
•
–
•
shameful betrayal
Jason: arguments
1.
Aphrodite saved J.
–
2.
by moving to Greece
Prudent match (argument from
expediency).
–
4.
though Medea helped
M. gained more than gave.
–
3.
Medea
•
M. helped-saved J.
–
2.
3.

for J., for M., for children
Women as trouble. (Tips his
hand?)

“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