Medea
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Medea |
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| Encyclopedia of Female Characters |
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Medea's story was told by Euripides in the classic tragedy, Medea.
Medea has come to stand for violence and anger in women; jealousy and possessiveness, the woman scorned; "unnatural" women without a maternal instinct; the activist or feminist woman who retaliates and doesn't take ill treatment sitting down. Along with Antigone and Electra, she is one of the great and memorable female characters (human) from Greek mythology.
The story has been retold numerous times. Retellings of particular feminist interest include (plays, novels, short stories):
- Christa Wolf's Medea: A Novel (1996)
- Marina Carr's By the Bog of Cats (1998) (play)
- Cherríe L. Moraga's The Hungry Woman: A Mexican Medea (Greek Medea combined with La Llorona and Aztec myth of Coyolxauhqui)
- Kerry Greenwood, Medea (1997; part of the "Delphic Women" series)
- Carol Leonard, "Medea" (short story in Dark Angels: Lesbian Vampire Stories (1995)
- Liz Lochhead, Medea (2001 play)
- Jackie Crossland, Collateral Damage: The Tragedy of Medea (1993; ISBN 0889740429; Press Gang Pub.)
- Linda Cargill, Jason and Medea (a YA feminist take)
- Tony Harrison, Medea: A Sex-War Opera[1]
- Toni Morrison's novel Beloved fictionalized the story of Margaret Garner, who in escaping slavery killed her children rather than see them returned to slavery; this novel (and the original story) is often compared to the Medea story.[2]
Very different takes on the story include:
- Celitka by Robert Holdstock, which merges Medea and Merlin[3]
Works in other media include:
- Pier Paolo Pasolini's 1970 film Medea, starring Maria Callas as Medea in her only filmed role -- but without singing (loosely based on the Euripides version)
- Lars Von Trier's 1988 TV version, Medea
- Luigi Cherubini's Medea (opera); recordings include Maria Callas
- Paintings by various artists: Delacroix, etc.
Notes
- ↑ Note from a Valerie Solanas bibliography at http://www.geocities.com/WestHollywood/Village/6982/solanas.html (last visited 2007/2/18):
- Tony Harrison, Medea: A Sex-War Opera, in Dramatic Verse, 1973-1985 (1985, Bloodaxe, Newastle upon Tyne). Girl Frenzy 4 reported seeing a Medea: Sex-War that “intertwines excerpts from the SCUM Manifesto with the classical story of Medea”. The published text I found makes no mention of the manifesto at all.
- ↑ See, e.g., Steven Weisenburger, Modern Medea: A Family Story of Slavery and Child-Murder from the Old South (1999, ISBN 0-8090-6954-7).
- ↑ See SFsite review by Victoria Strauss; SF Weekly interview with Holdstock.
References
- James J. Clauss and Sarah Iles Johnston, editors, Medea (1997) (ISBN 0691043760). A collection of essays examining major representations of Medea in myth, art, and literature.
- Bibliography of works dealing with Euripides' Medea, compiled by Professor Celia A. E. Luschnig, available at http://www.class.uidaho.edu/luschnig/Medea/bib.htm (last visited 2007/2/18)