Euripides: Medea

About this Course

About the Course

In this course, Professor Judith Mossman (University of Nottingham) explores Euripides’ Medea, a play which depicts a marital breakdown so severe that it leads to one woman taking revenge on her husband by killing their two children. As we move through the course, we think about a number of issues, including: the original performance context of the play, earlier treatments of the figure of Medea and what Euripides’ did differently, the idea of Medea as a character that is somehow “masculine” or “barbarian”, and the astonishing final scene in which Medea escapes Corinth in the Chariot of the Sun.

About the Lecturer

Judith Mossman is Professor of Classics at the University of Nottingham, and was formerly a Fellow of Trinity College, Dublin. She was educated at the Convent of the Sacred Heart, Woldingham, and Corpus Christi College, Oxford, and was a governor of Woldingham School from 1990-93. She is the author of two books and a number of edited volumes and articles on Euripides and Plutarch, and frequently gives talks on classical subjects to schools and summer schools. From 2005-9 she was Chair of the Joint Association of Classical Teachers (JACT) Classical Civilisation Committee.