sarahecast

I liked Medea, I thought the language was powerful and the depiction of character was perfect. Jason's got his flaws and thinks with his...you know...and Medea is the powerful sorceress used to getting her way. Sure there's some racism in there, and the format is outdated...whatever! Reading Greek literature can't help but teach you more about how the ancient Greeks thought than political correctness. Recently, though, upon looking it up, I discovered that in the original mythology, Medea did not kill her children! Euripides went the route of Hollywoodifying it to the point of a horrible atrocity! This kind of kills Euripides for me...he's immortal as a writer, for making a character immortal, but in doing so he ruined her reputation forever...he made her the most famous, hated and feared spurned lover in history for an act that she didn't commit! Everyone looks on her as a monster and thinks of her as that woman who hated her husband more than she loved her children...but in the original mythology, she took them with her when she left! ...they later got killed by other people. But still. Way to go, Euripides, you're just another Hollywood director adding gratuitous blood. That doesn't mean I like the play less, though. It means I frown at Euripides for writing it that way. Apparently his contemporaries did, too...THEY knew the original story, and hyping it up like that cost him in the contest he was writing it for...it only won third place. With all its gorgeous language and imagery and storytelling, it should have won first.

2022-10-29 03:53