4. Medea and the Gods

About this Lecture

Lecture

In this module, Lucy talks about the importance of the gods in Athenian society, in tragedy, and in Medea in particular. While Medea does not feature any gods on stage (unlike other Euripides plays), it does feature ritual actions which would have been protected by the gods: supplication, swearing of oaths, and guest-friendship. The module ends by looking at the dual-identity of Medea: as divine revenger and as human mother.

Course

In this module, we explore Euripides' Medea, a tragedy in which a Medea kills her own children to get back at Jason, who has left her for another woman. The course begins by looking at the myth of Medea and what the Athenian audience might have known about the character of Medea before Euripides' version. The course also looks at key themes in the Medea, including revenge, rhetoric, women, and the gods, as well as tackling the difficult issue of the role of Chorus.

Lecturer

Lucy Jackson completed a DPhil thesis in ‘The Athenian Dramatic Chorus in the Fourth Century BC’ at the end of 2013. She completed her graduate work at the University of Exeter and the University of Oxford (Corpus Christi College). During her DPhil she spent time as a visiting researcher at the Scuola Normale Superiore di Pisa, Princeton University and as an Apollo Fellow at the University of Sydney.

Her research interests focus on ancient and modern performance, the history of theatre, and the presence an interpretation of the ancient world in the modern era. She has acted and directed in a range of classical and non-classical dramas and is always seeking to promote a conversation between theory and practice in her research activities.