Performance Context

Euripides: Medea

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.

Performance Context

In this module, we think about the original performance context of the play —the date it was performed and the plays with which it formed a trilogy.