Every time there is a horrific story in the news about a mother murdering her children, the classic tragedy "Medea" by Euripides is mentioned. However, a close reading of the actual play shows that the point Euripides is trying to make in this drama is not about infanticide, but rather about the way "foreigners" are treated in Greece (this is best seen in the odes of the Chorus of Corinthian Women). The other key component of the play is the psychology of Medea and the way in which she constructs events to help convince herself to do the unspeakable deed and kill the two sons she has borne Jason. There is a very real sense in which Jason is the true villain of the piece and I do not think there is a comparable example in the extant Greek tragedies remain wherein a major mythological hero is made to look as bad as Euripides does in this play.

Another important thing to remember in reading "Medea" is that the basic elements of the story were already known to the Athenian audience that would be watching the play. Consequently, when the fact that Medea is going to kill her children is not a surprise what becomes important are the motivations the playwright presents in telling this version of the story. The audience remembers the story of the Quest for the Golden Fleece and how Medea betrayed her family and her native land to help Jason. In some versions of the story Medea goes so far as to kill her brother, chop up his body, and throw it into the sea so their father, the King of Colchis, must stop his pursuit of the Argo to retrieve the body of his son. However, as a foreigner Medea is not allowed to a true wife to Jason, and when he has the opportunity to improve his fortune by marrying the princess of Corinth, Medea and everything she had done for him are quickly forgotten.

To add insult to injury, Jason assures Medea that his sons will be well treated at the court while the King of Corinth, worried that the sorceress will seek vengeance, banishes her from the land. After securing sanctuary in Athens (certainly an ironic choice given this is where the play is being performed), Medea constructs a rather complex plan. Having coated a cloak with poison, she has her children deliver it to the princess; not only will the princess die when she puts on the cloak (and her father along with her), the complicity of the children in the crime will give her an excuse to justify killing in order to literally save them from the wrath of the Corinthians.

This raises an interest questions: Could Medea have taken the children with her to her exile in Athens? On the one hand I want to answer that obviously, yes, she can; there is certainly room in her dragon-drawn chariot. But given her status as a foreigner, if Jason goes to Athens and demands the return of his children, would he not then have a claim that Medea could not contest? More importantly, is not Medea's ultimate vengeance on Jason that she will hurt him by taking away everything he holds dear, namely his children and his princess bride?

In the final line of the play the Chorus laments: "Many things beyond expectation do the gods fulfill. That which was expected has not been accomplished; for that which was unexpected has god found the way. Such was the end of this story." This last line has also found its way into the conclusion of other dramas by Euripides ("Alcestis," "Bacchae" and "Andromache"), but I have always found it to fit the ending of "Medea" best, so I suspect that is where it originally came from and ended up being appended to those other plays sometime during the last several thousand years. However, the statement is rather disingenuous because one of the rather standard approaches in a play by Euripides is that his characters often deserve their fate. In a very real sense, Euripides provides justification for Medea's monstrous crime and his implicit argument to the Athenian audience is that the punishment fits the crime. However, Athenians would never give up their air of superiority; at least not until foreigners such as the Macedonians and the Romans conquered the self-professed cradle of democracy.

Following the ending of "Oedipus the King," Oedipus was exiled from Thebes, blind and a beggar. We learn from "Oedipus at Colonus" that his sons, Eteocles and Polyneices engaged in a civil war for the throne of Thebes (covered in "Seven Against Thebes" by Aeschylus). The two brothers kill each other and Creon, brother of Jocasta, becomes king. He orders that Eteocles, who nobly defended his city, shall receive an honorable burial, but that Polyneices, for leading the Argive invaders, shall be left unburied. This leads Antigone, sister to both of the slain brothers, to have to choose between obeying the rule of the state, the dictates of familial binds, and the will of the gods. This, of course, is the matter at the heart of this classic tragedy by Sophocles.

It is too easy to see the issues of this play, first performed in the 5th century B.C., as being reflected in a host of more contemporary concerns, where the conscience of the individual conflicts with the dictates of the state. However, it seems to me that the conflict in "Antigone" is not so clear-cut as we would suppose. After all, Creon has the right to punish a traitor and to expect loyal citizens to obey. Ismene, Antigone's sister, chooses to obey, but Antigone takes a different path. The fact that the "burial" of her brother consists of the token gesture of throwing dirt upon his face, only serves to underscore the ambiguity of the situation Sophocles is developing. Even though the playwright strips Creon of his son, Haemon and wife, Eurydice by the end of the drama, it is not a fatal verdict rendered against the king's judgment, but rather the playing out of the tragedy to its grim conclusion.

Note: Although not a universal sentiment, I have always enjoyed Jean Anouilh's "modern" version of the play, produced in 1944 and rampant with symbolism of the Nazi occupation of France. The two plays offer a fascinating analog and students are usually quick to appreciate how Anouilh revitalizes the ancient myth with the political situation in which he lived. Anouilh's play also has the virtue of making the title character the main character of the play.

This is going to short, but I found the play below standards set by the author. There is weak imagery combined by poor, ineffective dialogue, yet there are nice character settings. There is a nice story line combining fire and passion in Leonardo's case with love for the bride, yet it is let down by the poor use of language. It is good for reading before bed, but other than that, I'd say "NO", like the "Just Say NO" drug ads.

Lorca is often called the 20th century's greatest Spanish dramatist, and his skill with poetry in images of knives, sex, love, blood, horses and the moon illuminates this English translation. While my knowledge of Spanish is limited, the conflict of a Bride longing for but yet resisting another man who has already fathered a child by his Wife is poignantly portrayed in this version. The other man (Leonardo) rides a horse nearly to death, and rides like mad to see his about-to-be-married love beyond the peering eyes of others. His driven horse stands "down there stretched out, with his eyeballs bulging, heaving as if he'd just come back from the end of the world." The conflicts of love and the Bridegroom's Mother, who has lost her husband and her other son to violence, and the building passion, hate, love and the continual imagery of the wild horse--representing Leonardo himself?--build in poetic images and language that begins in the real and subtly transforms to surrealistic images of the moon who exposes the hidden shadows, then returns to the poetically real. In some aspects, the images of horse and rider hint at the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, but a knowledge of them is unnecessary to experience the passion of this play written by a friend of the then young Salvador Dali. The play is worth reading for its visual imagery alone, but it also encompasses a powerful story of passion, betrayal, hate, violence and love.

This will be a very brief review, but basically we have chosen this book to perform for or theatre studies cat. It is a really good play, and I recomend it to anyone who likes reading plays.

i ordered this book to supplement studies on gender issues in modern and contemporary irish literature... the book includes a variety of excerpts from some of the best authors (both male and female), none of which are taken out of the context in which they were originally intended. taking an interest in both the irish woman's self-image as represented by numerous female authors and poets, as well as the male conception of the female in the context of irish fiction, the collection is comprehensive and enjoyable to read outside of scholarly research and observation. the only lingering question in my mind remains the editors' abilities to discern some image of womanhood outside of the context of manhood, which they seem to take for granted, thus further dichotemizing the issue they seem to desire to shed light on... that said, i really enjoyed the collection, and the variety and openmindedness with which they gathered the excerpts.

This translation/adaption of Euripides's classic drama was, well, not good. Euripides's original leans toward feminism as it is, but Kennelly turns the play into a men-hating feminist diatribe. It can be an interesting and poetic take on the subject at times, but Euripides's message is lost in the bloodbath of the battle-axes. Talthybius and Menelaus, interesting and often sympathetic characters in the original, here emerge as weak and misoginous. Kennelly litters the play with profanity innapropriate to a classical tragedy -- for instance, Helen is called everything from (...) to (...) to (...), and the f-word, shocking and effective the first time it is used, gets to be too much after the fifteenth time it flies out of the Trojan women's mouths. This version does have its good moments, but eventually ends up as nothing but confused feminism. For example, Hecuba's use of water imagery in her final soliloquoy (totally Kennelly's invention -- there is no corresponding text for this in Euripides) seems only to drag on and lay on thick the extremely feminist message. Euripides knew how to present feminist messages in a much subtler way -- read the original.

Any actor doubting the visceral power of the Greek Tragedy must read Kennelly's take on this classic drama. Far from a passive dirge, this play is a loud battle cry and tribute to all outcast women in war and poverty who fight with cunning, reason, love, and dignity. This story could be set in Ireland, Bosnia, Rwanda...its power reverberates from beyond the ancient Greek grave. If you've given up on Euripides because of your starchy philosophy professor, pick up this edition from Bloodaxe Books!

ars

I've read a lot of Brendan Kennelly's books and Poetry My Arse is not my favorite (The Book of Judas is) but it's still an excellent collection of poetry. I read the book last year but there is still this one poem from the collection that sticks with me for some reason. It goes something like:

Climbing Folklore Hill one sunny morning/ Ace was nearly happy/ Then a shadow darkened a green railing/ And he thought of someone he'd love to kill.

Those aren't the right line breaks, but there it is. It's stuff like that that blows the top of my head off.