Tag: Euripides

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Assignment for Tuesday, 10.20.20

Dear Cinemythologists,

On Tuesday, October 20, our on Medea & Jason, continues with a close look at the most iconic version of this myth’s heroine: the Medea of Euripides. Accordingly, this will be an all-reading, no-viewing class

READING

  • Euripides, Medea.

If there is one text that has shaped the legacy of Medea, it is this play. If you read no other Athenian tragedy in your life, let it be this one.

As you read, please consider the following questions, and identify specific passages that support your reasoning.

A. Who are the Chorus, and how would you characterize their relationship with Medea?

B. What, if anything, precipitates the murder of the children. Is the audience prepared for it, or does it come out of the blue? Why do you think so?

C. How would you characterize the relationship between Medea and the male characters of the play? How do you think the staging reflects that relationship?

D. This tragedy, though now widely hailed as Euripides’ masterpiece, was accorded last place at the dramatic festival of 431 BCE. What might account for that verdict?

  • Griffiths, Emma. 2006. “Euripides’ Version of the Myth.” Medea. Chapter 6, pp. 71–84. Routledge.

Griffiths’ chapter on Euripides’ tragedy will help you think through some of the above. Please read it after the play, not before.

Note that Griffiths’ book is from the same very useful Routledge series as Daniel Odgen’s book on Perseus.

In class we’ll discuss the play and then survey screen texts indebted to Euripides.

DC

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Assignment for Thursday, 10.01.20

Dear Cinemythologists,

On Thursday, October 1, our unit on Heracles/Hercules continues. In the second half of the class, we’ll take a close look at another tragic text about the hero. In the first half, we’ll consider the meaning of muscle in visual media writ large.

READING

  • Euripides, Heracles.

Of the major Athenian playwrights, Euripides was the least popular in his own lifetime. But after his death his reputation grew, to the point where the number of his surviving works exceeds that of Sophocles and Aeschylus combined.

That said, the Heracles is among his lesser known plays. But it is well worth considering as a literary text that takes great liberties with the hero’s legend. What those liberties are and how they resonate in modern screen texts will be our focus.

VIEWING

Last spring, Gregory Spinner (Religious Studies) and I curated a Tang Museum exhibiton called FLEX, which took a hard look at muscled bodies from antiquity to modernity.

Of the videos linked above, the first introduces some of the aims and goals of the exhibition, even as it kicks off the exhibition’s permanent residency in cyberspace. The second video was part of the exhibition itself, a 20-minute montage covering 100+ years of muscle in screen media.

Watch both and take notes on anything that interests you. In the first hour of our class we’ll be joined by Professor Spinner on a virtual tour of some of the objects from the exhibition, especially those that intersect with the notions of heroism and legend in our current unit.

DC

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