The Political Background of Euripides' Medea
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.14195/1984-249X_14_2Keywords:
Euripides, Medea, Greek/Barbarian, Corinth/Athens, philiaAbstract
Medea is the first Euripidean play that praises Athens as a space of harmony and a mirror for Greek ethical values. The historical background of Medea performance (the beginning of the Peloponnesian War and the hostilities with Cotinth) is to be taken into account in order to understand the contrasting characters Creon/Aegeus as a strategy of poli-tical propaganda. It is to underline, in this context, Euripides’ criticism of Greek ethical behaviour by means of the characterof Jason, who breaks oaths, neglects fidelity, which was former confirmed by reciprocal taking right hands, sealed in the bridal bed, the room for generating children. Jason also neglects the reciprocity of philia, a fundamental value for social relationships and for relationships in the oikos. Then Medea, the Barbarian woman who tried former her acculturation, radicalizes now her feeling of being different and of being non-Greek. Euripides already presents in this play his peculiar subversion of the binomial Greek/Barbarian.
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