Euripides’ Medea

This article is the first in a series of comments on the play Medea by the Athenian dramatist, Euripides (circa 480 – 404 BCE).

Background.

In Euripides' day the favored-day nation utter of Greece did now not exist. The Greek world of the fifth century BCE Consistent of hundreds of self sufficient city states unfold throughout the Mediterranean station, especially in what are with out a doubt identified as Greece and the Greek islands, Bulgaria, western Turkey, southern Italy, Sicily and southern France. What sure these cities together became once a shared tradition (religion, language, origins, tales) but with clear dialects, political varieties and other local differences. Some cities had been demolitions, some oligarchies and others protection power dictatorships. Some cities, mainly those outside approved-day Greece, had been based mostly as colonies of other cities, and over time these colonies developed their very maintain clear cultures. Athens and Sparta had been the strongest cities in Euripides' day. They’d cooked side by side against the Persians within the years without lengthen before Euripides' starting up, but throughout the fifth century they started to compose alliances with other Greek cities and gradually dominate them. Competition and battle followed. Medea became once first produced in 431 BCE, only about a months before the outbreak of the Peloponnesian Battle between Athens and Sparta, which became once to final for the reminder of Euripides' lifestyles.

Athenian Theater.

The Athenians did now not proceed to the theater all 300 and sixty five days round and so that they did now not proceed purely for leisure. They’d a comedy competition in January and a tragedy competition in March or April. Each had been indispensable utter events with deep non secular significance. The tragicy competition became once identified because the Metropolis Dionysia in honor of Dionysus, the god of wine, the grape vine and agriculture and successfully-known the arrival of spring and the planting of flora. For the Metropolis Dionysia three dramatists had been every invited to fresh three tragedies and a satyr play. The latter became once a form of bawdy comedy, gentle relief after the tragedies. The dramatists would fresh their plays on tremendous days, with the manufacturing bills met by a successfully off patron. A panel of judges voted on the plays and awarded a prize to the winner. In 431 BCE Euripides got right here final. In actuality, even though he wrote about 90 plays (and so must maintain entered the Metropolis Dionysia 30 instances), he only won first prize four instances, and the final time became once a posthumous to find.

The Metropolis Dionysia took space when crusing around the Mediterranean Sea resumed after the winter storms. This meant that the Athenians might perhaps perhaps perhaps presumably invite representatives from the total other Greek cities and utter their very maintain praises their cultural (and protection power) superiority. Thus, when Medea became once first performed, the theater became once filled with the total Athenian electorate (the free-born males) and their guests. The finest females fresh had been about a high priestesses. The Athenians' wives and daughters would were safely locked away at home within the females's quarters.

The Play.

Medea is self-discipline in Corinth, and Athenian tragedies had been in total self-discipline outside Athens so the dramatists might perhaps perhaps perhaps presumably touch upon local politics without exhibiting to criticize the city directly.

One entertaining ingredient about Athenian drama is that even though the actors had been male, quite a lot of the central characters are female. That’s with out a doubt the case with Medea as once the heroine appears to be like she dominates the stage for the comfort of the play. The different female characters are the elderly Nurse who has regarded after Medea since childhood and knows how her thoughts works and what she is estimable of, and a Chorus of females. The Chorus choices as Medea's sympathizers, advisers, critics and, extraordinarily, judges.

The principle male characters are Medea's husband, Jason; Creon, the King of Corinth; and Aegeus, the King of Athens. We peek Medea interacting with these three mighty males in flip as she makes an are trying to shape her maintain destiny.

Of us were arguing over the play's which formulation for two and a half of thousand years, and more lately the arguments maintain tended to level of curiosity on what Euripides became once attempting to divulge about females, veritably expressed as, “Became Euripides a feminist or a misogynist?”

The acknowledge to that request hinges on what you originate of Medea's words and actions, which we are succesful of remove level to of within the subsequent article.