The City and the Family: Euripides’ Medea

Euripides (480-406 BCE) and Fifth Century Athens

· Athenian Democracy

· Athenian Imperialism

· The Rights and Responsibilities of a Citizen

· Debate and Drama

Greek Drama

•Contests and Contexts

•Homer’s Crumbs

•The Ritual for Dionysus

•Revelry and Respect

•Apollo and Dionysus

Medea: Family and Discord

•Exile and Mistrust

•Woman’s Fate

•Wife or Wives?

•Sent into Exile

•Bickering and Plotting

The Murder and the Escape

•Aigeus’s Promise

•The Chorus of Reason

•The Crime

•Bitter Words

•What the Gods Achieve

Aristotle’s Categories

•Hamartia (Flaw) and Hubris (Pride)

•Peripatea (Reversal) and Anagnorsis (Discovery)

•Taboo

•Self-consciousness

Midterm Review: The Works

•Gilgamesh

•The Exaltation of Inanna by Enheduanna

•The Hebrew Bible

•Homer’s Iliad and Odyssey

•Sappho’s Poems

•Euripides’ Medea

The Times and Places

•The Ancient Near East: c. 2500-1500 BCE

• Israel, c. 1000-300BCE

•Ancient Greece

–Homer, c. 750-800 BCE

–Sappho, c. 630 BCE

–Euripides, 480-406 BCE

The Major Themes

•Leadership

•Mortality

•God and Divine Punishment

•War, Rage, and Justice

•Rank and Merit

The Forms

•The Literary Epic

•The Prayer or Hymn

•The Sacred Text

•The Oral Epic

•The Lyric

•The Play