Dramaturgy of Euripides, general characteristics. "Medea
At first glance it seems that the drama, as was in keeping with tradition, was written in mythological story. However, it is noteworthy that the playwright chooses that fragment of the myth when the heroic past of the heroes is behind him, and depicts a personal, family drama. The dynamics of feeling and passion are one of Euripides’ favorite themes. It's his first time in ancient literature clearly poses psychological problems, especially problems female psychology, and the significance of Euripides for world literature is based primarily on his female images.
Among the most powerful tragedies of Euripides is “Medea” (431). Medea is a mythological figure from the cycle of tales about the Argonauts, the granddaughter of Helios (the Sun), a sorceress capable of the most terrible crimes. in 431 to the image of Medea and gave the tragedy of a woman who passionately loved but was deceived.
And as the bearer of a new attitude towards marriage, Medea gives a speech to the choir of Corinthian women about difficult situation women in the family, about unequal morality, which requires fidelity from a woman, but does not extend this requirement to a man. Jason, whose second marriage was dictated by the desire to create a “support for the home” and ensure the future of his children, follows traditional views on the tasks of the family, but Euripides does not spare colors in order to depict his baseness, cowardice and insignificance. Jason's response to Medea's reproaches of ingratitude is an example of the sophistic art of “proving” any position and defending an unjust cause.
"Medea" is indicative of the dramaturgy of Euripides in many respects. The depiction of the struggle of feelings and internal discord is something new that Euripides introduced into Attic tragedy. Along with this, there are numerous discussions about family, marriage, fatherhood, and the perniciousness of passions: not only Medea, but also the choir, and even the old woman-nurse discusses.
The heroine does not consider her fate to be exceptional; she expresses sad reflections about the subordinate, dependent fate of a woman, her defenselessness and lack of rights:
However, Medea herself, in accordance with the nature and integrity of her character, is not able to put up with humiliation. with the same force that she loved, she begins to hate Jason and look for a way to take revenge on him. The idea of infanticide is finally suggested by a meeting with the childless Athenian king Aegeus. In a conversation with him, she understands how a childless man suffers, and decides to take away the most precious thing from Jason. But this blow is simultaneously directed against herself, so Medea does not immediately and with terrible anguish decide to take this step. The heroine changes her intention several times, conflicting feelings struggle within her, and yet gradually a terrible decision matures within her.
Before Euripides, the prevailing version of the myth was that children were killed by angry Corinthians upon learning of the death of their king and young princess. Euripides left this to the heroine herself, convincingly showing that, no matter how terrible this act is, Medea, who belongs to proud, powerful natures, unable to forgive insults, could have done this. The viewer cannot accept and forgive Medea for her actions, but understands by whom and how she was driven to the crime
At first glance, it seems that the drama, as is in keeping with tradition, is written on a mythological plot. However, it is noteworthy that the playwright chooses that fragment of the myth when the heroic past of the heroes is behind him, and depicts a personal, family drama. Before us is the grief of a lonely, deceived, abandoned woman. Deviations from traditional mythological versions are often found in the tragedies of Euripides. A certain tendency is noticeable behind this: for Euripides, myth is not the sacred history of the people, but material for creativity. In fact, Euripides constrains the framework of myth: the new social and everyday content of his tragedies comes into conflict with the old mythological form. Essentially, Euripides would need to abandon myth, but this would be too bold and decisive a violation of tradition, however, he certainly brought closer the destruction of the mythological basis of the tragedy. Euripides was one of the first to turn to the depiction of a love conflict in drama and made love passion the driving motive of events . In Sophocles' Antigone, a bright female character was created and the theme of love was present (the line of Antigone and Haemon), but as a secondary and non-self-sufficient one, subordinate to the choice of the civic position of the heroes. For Medea, her passion is main basis life. She sacrificed her loved ones, her homeland, and her good name as a sacrifice to her passion, but after a number of years life together Jason treacherously neglected her for the sake of low calculation.
Medea plans the murder of Creon and the princess in cold blood, without any doubt about the correctness of the chosen decision; the only thing that “confuses” her is that “on the way to the bedroom” or “on business” she can be “captured... and the villains will get to mock,” and the conversation with Jason only strengthens Medea in her intention to do this .
In a verbal duel with Jason, she exposes him as a complete nonentity and a scoundrel.
hot, passionate, emotional, driven by feelings and instincts, proud, harsh, unrestrained and immeasurable. Medea is immeasurable in everything: in love, hatred, revenge. It is because of this that other characters in the tragedy do not understand her.
Medea acts out the scene of reconciliation with Jason
Medea's egoism: she does not think about what is better for her children, to live or die, to stay in the city or wander with her, she is driven only by her own feelings and her own desires.
The ending of the tragedy is very bright: Medea appears in a chariot drawn by dragons, which Helios sent her. With her are the corpses of her children. Her last dialogue with Jason takes place, which somewhat changes the nature of the drama
Tragedy carries within itself a sense of the absurdity of existence: there is no justice in the world, no boundary between good and evil, no measure, no truth, no happiness. Medea makes you doubt the highest values, the existence of the gods (she calls for their help, but they do not help her in any way), and her view of the world.
the choir is on the side of Medea,
Medea is the undoubted center of the work, the world of tragedy revolves around her, she focuses on herself all the emotional and psychological content of the drama; willy-nilly you begin to empathize with her, her tossing causes a reciprocal storm of feelings. It seems that Euripides himself was fascinated by the image of the murderous sorceress.
Innovation: The duality of her character - she mourns and takes pity on children, and kills. Before E. inner world no person was depicted. The depiction of the struggle of feelings and internal discord is something new that Euripides introduced into Attic tragedy. Along with this, there are numerous discussions about family, marriage, fatherhood, and the perniciousness of passions: not only Medea, but also the choir, and even the old woman-nurse discusses.
Euripides' Medea: conflict and characters.
Euripides (about 485-406 BC). The social crisis of the Athenian slave-owning democracy and the breakdown caused by it traditional concepts and views were most fully reflected in the work of Sophocles’ younger contemporary, Euripides.. In contrast to Sophocles, Euripides did not take direct part in political life state, but he was keenly interested in social events. His tragedies are full of various political statements and allusions to modernity.
Great success Euripides did not have it among his contemporaries. From Euripides, a total of 18 dramas have come down to us (in total he wrote from 75 to 92) and a large number of excerpts. The playwright brought his heroes closer to reality; he, according to Aristotle, portrayed people as they are. The characters of his tragedies, while remaining, like those of Aeschylus and Sophocles, heroes of myths, were endowed with thoughts, aspirations, passions contemporary poet of people.
There is criticism in a number of Euripides' tragedies religious beliefs and the gods turn out to be more insidious, cruel and vengeful than people. In his socio-political views, he was a supporter of moderate democracy, the support of which he considered small landowners. In some of his plays there are sharp attacks against demagogue politicians: by flattering the people, they achieve power in order to use it for their own selfish purposes. In a number of tragedies, Euripides passionately exposes tyranny: the dominance of one person over other people against their will seems to him a violation of the natural civil order. Nobility, according to Euripides, lies in personal merit and virtue, and not in noble origin and wealth. Positive characters of Euripides repeatedly express the idea that an unbridled desire for wealth can push a person to commit a crime. Euripides’ attitude towards slaves deserves attention. He believes that slavery is injustice and violence, that people have the same nature and a slave, if he has a noble soul, is no worse than a free one.
Euripides often responds in his tragedies to the events of the Peloponnesian War. Although he is proud of the military successes of his compatriots, he generally has a negative attitude towards war. He shows the suffering that war brings to people, especially women and children. War can only be justified if if people defend the independence of their homeland. These ideas put Euripides among the most progressive thinkers of mankind. Euripides became the first playwright known to us, in whose works the characters of the characters were not only revealed, but also developed. At the same time, he was not afraid to portray low human passions, the struggle of conflicting aspirations in one and the same person. Aristotle called him the most tragic of all Greek playwrights.
The tragedy Medea was staged on the Athenian stage in 438. It depicts the daughter of the Colchian king, who fell in love with one of the Argonauts. Out of jealousy, Medea, contrary to the norms of polis ethics, commits the crime of killing her own children (a kind of refraction of the sophistic theory that man is the measure of all things). Euripides acts as a deep psychologist, showing the storm of passions in the soul of Medea when she decided to kill her children. The conflict in her soul is between love for her children and jealousy for her husband, between passion and a sense of duty. Euripides reveals the soul of a person tormented by internal struggle, he does not embellish reality, the characters are realistic (and in life, passion often takes precedence over duty). The characters are realistic, but the ending is given according to the myth, the god Helios, Medea's grandfather, appears and saves her. This gives a mythological coloring to the entire image of the heroine, but overall it is very psychological.
Chapter I
DECLINE AND SEARCH. TRAGEDY OF EURIPIDES "MEDEA"
In their development, civilizations follow the path of creatures of nature, such as plants. They are born, developed, strengthened; reaching the era of their classicism, they flourish, then fade, grow old, decline, and die. It is possible, however, that they do not die at all. They are preserved for the people of the future, like homesickness, like the rustle of memories of their past, and descendants sometimes happen to coordinate their plans, their new creations with them. Even having failed, they represent hopes that have come true, but have not turned into nothing, but are alive and active in the memory of mankind.
It seems to me that periods of decline of civilizations are always very interesting. First of all, because these periods clearly show - more clearly than the periods of their occurrence, which are always shrouded in darkness - as a result of what reasons and under what conditions human societies create cultural values and what they lose when these values disappear.
On the other hand, these periods of decline, these “inclined planes” of civilizations are not always entirely negative and fruitless: they still create something new; they pose new, sometimes more complex problems. It seems that decrepit societies have suddenly been breathed into life again, they are beginning to act, to exist again. As the civilization that was their natural atmosphere, their oxygen, disintegrates, as the beliefs that formed their daily food are shaken, these societies - for they do not want to die - try to find new methods of thinking, create new worlds of poetry or wisdom, they come up with - the more they become decrepit - more and more reasons for hope and confidence. Periods of decline are also periods of discovery; civilizations change rather than die; their existence is one of constant rebirth.
However, isn’t the sun that sets on Jura the same sun that at the same moment rises on the other side of the ocean, bringing people the promise of a new day?
This work covers two centuries, very dark for the Hellenic world - the 4th and 3rd centuries BC. e. These are centuries that have seen the fall of city-states. This is Demosthenes, the doomed champion of these cities, who gave the classical era a social framework that was narrow and harsh. The genius Alexander, and before him his father Philip, deal a mortal blow to these political communities. But Alexander is not limited to the destruction of the city-state, he creates a new form of the modern state. After his amazing campaigns, vast monarchies arose in the East, ruled by kings, such dynasties as the Ptolemaic dynasty in Egypt and the Seleucids in Asia.
However, in these same centuries, two great philosophers still strive to restore and strengthen the old city-state on new foundations. This is primarily Plato,
and then Aristotle, and also others after them. But these attempts were futile. Plato himself was attracted by broader plans. He wanted to replace the earthly state, the decayed democracy of citizens, with a divine, otherworldly world, where all souls would meet after death and which would anticipate the kingdom of heaven. Thus, Greek civilization, degrading and at the same time producing a profound revolution in society and thinking, prepares the way for Christianity. This is one of the main directions development of the 4th and 3rd centuries BC. uh..
However, this is only one aspect that is presented in this work. But the ancient Greek civilization, the good primitive civilization of the 5th century BC. e., the “pagan” civilization of the Greek people, which created in abundance between 450 and 400 BC. e. classical creations, this civilization has not yet ceased to exist. To understand the political context of its decline, it will be enough to turn to the works of a historian who primarily represents the Greek mind, sound and insightful, namely the works of Thucydides, a thinker and artist who brilliantly showed how, starting from the last third of the 5th century BC. e. wars between the Greeks destroyed the world of city-states even more surely than Philip and Alexander did.
We will also show in this work the ancient desire of the Greek people, which existed from time immemorial (let us turn to Ulysses), to explain the world, to know its laws in order to use them and subjugate them. This science of the physical laws of the universe was glorified in the classical era by the great name of Hippocrates, the true father (despite Moliere's jokes) of modern medicine. In the era of the decline of Greek civilization, science was almost the only type of human activity that was still progressing. Science has formed - in astronomy, biology, mechanics, for example - hypotheses that (since in the Roman era and in the Middle Ages scientific thought was fettered) will again be put forward by the scientists of the Renaissance and will be based on experience and reason and will finally be brilliantly resolved in the age of science , and scientists will achieve unprecedented success in all respects in this age of science, of which we are contemporaries.
Finally, we must not forget about poets. The poets of the Alexandrian era, more distant from the people than the poets of the classical age, in order to escape from their contemporary activities, which were often too harsh, created poetic worlds, a kind of delightful refuge, a kind of relaxation granted to people after hard work, this is paradise (a large garden in Greek meaning this word), but a paradise on earth, very far from the paradise of Plato’s soul. Distant, but perhaps equally chimerical.
This is the point I want to make here. But in order to clarify this concept of “decline”, which I will try to define and which will dominate throughout the work, I will place the first chapters of my presentation under the sign of one of the poets of the golden age of Athens - the second half of the 5th century BC. e., the author of tragedies, Euripides. I'll explain this. First I note that Euripides' tragedies have been as much condemned as they have been praised; they were condemned by the poet’s contemporaries, as well as XIX critics centuries, for example, Nietzsche, was praised by the generations who lived at the end of antiquity, who loved this poet much more than Aeschylus and Sophocles, whose works were played on stage everywhere in the vast territory of the East, conquered by Alexander. And even today Euripides still has ardent friends who, recognizing the weaknesses and shortcomings of some of his unsuccessful works, honor in him the author of a number of masterpieces of tragic theater, the poet to whom we owe Racine’s Phaedra, who loved Euripides from childhood, who continued and completed it .
This difference in judgments about Euripides testifies to the dual nature of his genius, his ambivalence, as they say today. Yes, in a certain sense Euripides destroys tragedy, as Nietzsche claims. Euripides intellectualizes it, schematizes it, now introducing somewhat artificial techniques into it in the prologue and in the denouement, now including into the tragedy debates, like sophistic ones, a kind of ideological debate, often inappropriate, concerning problems contemporary to him, which, however, are also the problems of ours days. It is possible that Euripides pays tribute here to his deep humanity. He is too sensitive to all sorts of human misfortunes and to human quests not to start an argument when
When the case arises, he argues regarding slavery, talks about the position of women, inequality of the sexes, and especially about the role of the gods or fate itself. Euripides is open to every human concern. He turns his face to his era and to everything that worries it: to the misfortune, weakness, loneliness of man. Euripides is always ready, and even too ready. He does not know how to be distracted or step aside when some circumstances fit too closely with the action of the tragedy and spoil the work.
These scenes and the unsuccessful plays in which they are included, which constitute the negative element, indicate decline.
But the poet also has positive side, creative element. This is the same love of the creator that sometimes prompts Euripides to open discussions about human actions, discussions that slow down the dramatic action; this same love prompts the poet to explore areas of the tragic, unknown to his predecessors, to show actions where man, without denying the participation of the gods in our lives, manifests himself more clearly in the play of the passions that control him, which, due to the pitiful weakness of his will, destroy and destroy him. In other words, Euripides opens the realm of the tragic in the human heart, the tragedy of passions that lead us and often destroy us.
Aeschylus and Sophocles barely suspected about this discovery, which in the future would form the content of lyric poetry, and then the novel of the end of antiquity and, finally, modern tragedy starting with the Renaissance.
Euripides, therefore, can be considered a poet of decline only insofar as every decline is equally a heralding of renewal. And he not only destroyed the ancient tragedy (if only he destroyed it at all), he continued it, he updated it, he passed it on to our time - the Renaissance, he softened it with the very beating of our so complex heart.
The tragic in Aeschylus and Sophocles threatened the hero from the outside, the gods fell upon him. Bombs fell from the sky. Euripides always assigns a place to the tragic in the very immediate vicinity of us (and is there anything closer to us than our own heart?), in the depths of our heart, unknown to ourselves. From now on, bombs fall not only from the sky - the human heart itself produces an explosion.
As an example of this tragic principle, which, taking advantage of our passions, amazes us (what discovery could be more surprising?), I will cite Euripides’ Medea, presenting it briefly.
Medea is a woman abandoned by her husband. The nurse who opens the action, with her chatter, informs us about what happened, reporting all the circumstances of the breakup. Medea fell in love with Jason in a distant country, in Colchis, where they first met; he became her husband, but now leaves her with two children. Medea was the daughter of the king of Colchis, where Jason arrived in search of the Golden Fleece. She helped Jason get the Golden Fleece, thus betraying her father, fled with Jason and followed him to Greece, to Corinth, where the action unfolds. But now Jason is going to marry the daughter of the Corinthian king. This is an alliance more profitable than the one he concluded with a foreigner. He sacrifices Medea in cold blood. The nurse tells us about her:
They don't like her
And the tender heart suffers deeply.
Jason children with his wife in exchange
I decided to give away the bed for a new one,
He marries the princess - alas!
Medea is insulted...
Euripides, Plays, translation from ancient Greek. “Art”, M., 1960, “Medea”, p. 20-25.
How does Medea respond to this betrayal? First, whole days spent in sobs, silent despair, pitiful moans about the father and about the abandoned homeland. Then the nurse adds a couple more, more gloomy touches:
Even children
She became hated, and on them
The mother can't look.
I'm kind of scared
What a crazy thought didn't come
In her head...
(Ibid., pp. 46-50)
Can't stand insults
A difficult disposition, and such is Medea.
Yes, Medea’s wrath is formidable: it’s not easy
Her enemy will have victory.
(Ibid., pp. 50 and 58-59)
And now anxiety is already creeping into our compassion for Medea. The queen appeared to us as a mystery. We know all the circumstances under which she was abandoned, but we know nothing about her herself, we know only the wild unbridledness of her soul. The fate that will defeat her is within herself, in depths still unknown to either her or us.
The poet continues this introduction in a scene of dialogue between the nurse and the old slave who brings Medea’s children from gymnastics. The tragic does not suddenly invade the drama; it slips into it imperceptibly. We are present at the most ordinary chatter of two servants devoted to their mistress. One tells the other the gossip he heard at the fountain. This is the flow of everyday life. The presence of children would have brought us joy if a few words that escaped from the nurse and related to children had not brought vague anxiety into this completely ordinary life. The nurse says to the old slave:
And you, old man, away
Keep children from mother - she
Upset. Fury is imprinted
In her features, and as if on children
She didn't pour out. Alas! It won't subside
Without a victim, her wrath, I know.
(Ibid., pp. 114-119)
Suddenly a cry comes from the palace: Medea calls for death. Nurse says:
A little later she says to herself.
...Where is the limit for you,
O heart of great daring,
The heart is inconsolable when there is torment
Did it sting you, heart?
(Ibid., pp. 135-138)
So, the anxiety becomes definite: the impending doom is caused by the hidden excitement of Medea’s heart. There is a spring of dramatic action there.
The chorus of the tragedy quite simply appears on stage. It consists of women who walk by and stop when they hear strange screams coming from the palace. Women are alarmed, they question, they sympathize. The chorus of tragedy is the street that comes into contact with the action, the street with its curiosity, with its kind hearted, with her easily arising compassion. These are nice women, but don't expect them to act rashly. They sympathize with Medea, she is a woman, like them. But she is a foreigner, and besides, she is a woman of royal origin. They are afraid to interfere in this quarrel between the greats of this world. They are outraged by the behavior of both sides. They pray to the gods to prevent the threat of peace in their own families. But they don't rush into battle. Euripides, through these women, a little sentimental and moralizing, makes one feel the power of Medea, overcome by passion. He loves to show, along with the tragedy of great destinies, the course of a completely ordinary and simple life - an effect built on contrast, but also on identity, because Medea is also only a woman. Here we are touching on what can be considered the proximity of our everyday life to Euripides’ tragic beginning.
Medea finally leaves the palace and appears before an interested and moved chorus. Completely different than we expected. Which strange woman! In the palace she complained and cursed. In front of these women of the people, on the street, in the light of day, she pulls herself together, she takes control of herself. There are no more complaints, only bitterness matches her dignity. It’s bitter to be a foreigner in this city, where her own husband really treats her like a foreigner. It is especially bitter to be a woman and to endure the humiliating treatment that is usual for the humiliated position of women in general, while no one has a soul more masculine than hers. O these illustrious men, so proud of their bravery in battle, and so despising the tranquility of a woman's life in her home.
Medea, addressing the choir, exclaims:
What a lie! Three times under the shield
I would rather stand than just once
Give birth...
(Ibid., pp. 319-321)
A woman has her own shrine for which she fights - this is her bed. She has the right to at least protect him.
We are timid
And the kind of fight or iron
Scares my wife. But if marriage ties
Touched by insult, bloodthirsty
you will not find a heart on earth.
(Ibid., pp. 324-328)
Having thus brilliantly played on the female pride of the choir of women, she demands support from all women in the fight that she begins against the man. She easily extracts a promise from the choir to maintain sympathetic silence.
This scene gives us the first proof of Medea's power. Medea suffers, but Medea is strong. Her self-control is equal to her influence on others.
But here she is now face to face with a man, an obvious enemy, with Creon - the Corinthian king, who has just announced to her about her exile. This is the verdict that Medea will fight against. Here we come to know her strange power, her charm, which has such an effect on men. The basis and strength of this charm is a very rare combination of extraordinary passion with an exceptional mind. In Medea, passion not only does not cloud the mind, but purifies it, makes it clearer. Here we have before us a very precise position of Euripides: passion does not blind him at all characters(according to current wisdom) it gives clarity to the mind. Medea's mind becomes sharper even during passionate excitement. Medea never loses sight of her intended goal. With this goal in mind, she can even use a passionate impulse in cold blood. In this scene with the king she has almost no need to play a role. She only suffers in front of him, but keeps herself within certain limits, within which compassion is able to touch Creon without disturbing him. This is what you might call using your passion wisely. Sometimes she allows herself a few ironic words:
Get married
And enjoy life...
(Ibid., pp. 394-395)
Overall the scene represents genuine passion, but controlled passion. At the same time, behind the actual suffering, one can feel how, from cue to cue, the extraordinary joy of being stronger grows in Medea: the joy of fighting and winning... Medea found in this scene what she needed for her revenge: one single day of reprieve . She is the mistress of her actions. What will she do? It all depends on what she is. However, we don't know this yet. The mystery of her being has not yet been solved.
One thing is certain: Medea will commit murder. She does not yet clearly imagine any other revenge other than killing her enemies. She shouts to the choir:
O blind man!..
Hold the decision in your hands - and leave it
We have a whole day... Enough for our eyes,
So that father, and daughter, and husband with her
We turned... the hated into corpses.
(Ibid., pp. 457-461)
Her imagination is heated: she sees herself either as an arsonist or as she silently enters the marital peace with a sword in her hand. She is rejoicing.
She anticipates the voluptuousness of murder in advance. This deadly delirium, this frenzy, has a kind of solemnity that the chorus, instead of retreating in horror, as one might expect here, seems to be carried away by this noisy expression of feelings. He exclaims:
The sacred rivers flowed backwards,
The truth remains, but is it the same?
That's right, and our bad rumor
He will also turn to praise,
And golden words will fly
Wives delight in birds.
(Ibid., pp. 505-506 and 510-513)
Suddenly Jason enters, reserved and cold. The scene was still moving in slow motion, to our great amusement. It was necessary that we be imbued with the consciousness of the power of Medea before she came into conflict with another, equal to her, force - with Jason. Medea is engulfed in heat, Jason is cold as ice.
Jason doesn't like anything. He is presented to us as a perfect egoist. Jason is a cynic who went through the school of sophists and speaks its language. His conclusions are impeccable to the point of paradox. Medea provided him with a number of services; he admits this and says it himself:
Yes,
I acknowledge your services.
(Ibid., pp. 648-649)
But in the end, Medea was given the power to love him. This is love, he owes some gratitude to Cyprus herself, if only love requires gratitude at all. But love does not require payment - otherwise it is not love. In addition, Medea received as much as she gave, and even more, and, what is especially important, she received the privilege of living “not among the barbarians,” where force reigns, but in the country of the Greeks, where justice reigns. So, the word “justice” comes out of Jason’s mouth. Jason uses the most sacred words with boundless shamelessness. As for his new marriage, Jason justifies it
First of all, you are in Hellas
And no longer among the barbarians, the law
You learned the truth instead of force,
Which reigns among you.
(Ibid., pp. 631-634)
Here and below, editorial date notes
the love that he supposedly has for his children. He says it, and he proves it: his children will benefit from such an advantageous marriage, which he enters into both for the sake of money and for the sake of their good upbringing, therefore, they will benefit both materially and morally.
Medea herself will admit this, if only she thinks about something other than her marital bed. Finally, Jason is going to behave like a decent person: he breaks up with his wife, but he offers her money and assistance outside the country.
There are times when a completely decent person turns out to be a complete boor.
Revealing Jason's egoism, Euripides achieves an unheard-of degree of poignancy. Euripides is pleased here, as in other places in his presentation, to expose this root of most of our actions.
A character like Jason not only interests us: he worries us because we find in him obvious a part of ourselves that we do not recognize. This is one of the secrets of Euripides' art - to depict what we want to refuse.
In continuation of this scene, the suffering Medea was only able to slightly hurt Jason. Jason, who loves nothing, is invulnerable. Love alone makes a person vulnerable, and Medea knows this all too well. But does Jason really love nothing? One word escaped him, referring to children, a cynical word, like everything he utters.
I think,
That we have enough of them, and you
I have nothing to blame for here...
(Ibid., pp. 677-679)
This is where we will end. If you -
You or our children need money
On the long journey, please say now:
You will not be refused. Me and the signs
I can send it to friends in a foreign country,
They will help you...
(Ibid., pp. 739-744)
But this word reveals him, and Medea remembers this word. Thus, in this scene, during which she experienced so much humiliation and was really crushed by the lump of Jason’s egoism, Medea, always strong enough to maintain her superiority, also acquires a weapon: Jason values his children. It's enough. The triumph of Medea logically follows from the temporary triumph of Jason.
I come now to the scene with Aegeus, the king of Athens, an old friend of Medea. Medea allows Aegeus to convince herself to accept exile and agrees to take advantage of the refuge that the king offers her, if necessary. In the theater, such scenes evoke too heavy thoughts in the characters and the viewer. In this case, the thought of killing children arises. Moreover, here
in this scene, in a certain sense, fate - in other words, circumstances - and our passions act together. Life offers such opportunities; the main thing is that Medea can grasp this. She is not afraid to die after her crime, but she wants to enjoy her revenge. That is why she accepts Aegeus's hospitable offer.
After this conversation, which gives her the opportunity to protect herself from enemies, Medea suddenly sees clearly: she will first use the children to set a net for Jason’s new wife. The children will give her poisoned gifts, which will cause her death. After this, Medea will kill her children. This is the only blow she can deal to Jason. It doesn't matter that this blow will also hit her. Only in this way can she openly demonstrate her strength... She announces all this to the choir, mixing glee with horror, alternating tears with triumphant exclamations. The prologue has already prepared us for the fact that Medea’s passion can turn against her own children, and yet we do not allow the thought that this premonition will turn into reality. It does not yet seem to us that the need to kill children is clearly understood by Medea. We say together with the choir:
No never
You don't dare
In godless rage
Wet yours
Blood on my hand
Praying children!..
(Ibid., pp. 1024-1029)
Nevertheless, Medea's plans begin to be carried out with terrifying precision. She easily manages to lure Jason into the trap of reconciliation. In this scene, where she tests Jason's fatherly heart, which reveals the sensitivity hidden under the crust of selfishness, she, feigning beaming, felt the joyful thrill of finally finding a chink in Jason's impenetrable armor into which she could plunge a knife. A thrill of joy and horror: for Jason’s love for his sons is at the same time a sentence that dooms the children to death and thereby snatches them from him for her.
When Medea is left alone with the children, the greatest struggle begins in her soul. They are in front of her, with their sweet eyes, with their last smile:
Alas! For what
You look at me and laugh
Your last laugh?
(Ibid., pp. 1230-1232)
She is the complete mistress of their life and death. She squeezes them in her arms and covers them with kisses.
Children, give me your hands,
I want to press them to my lips...
Beloved hand, you, hair, you, lips,
And you, the kind of face that kings have
It only happens... You will find happiness
Not here, alas! Stolen by father
You have it... Oh sweet embrace,
The cheek is so tender and the mouth
A pleasant breath!..
Go away, quickly leave...
(Ibid., pp. 1262-1271)
She dismisses them and motions for them to go home. For the first time in the theater, dramatic conflict was limited to the limits of the human heart. Six times, like raging waves, maternal love and the demon of vengeance collide in the depths of this heart, which seems to be created simultaneously from living tissue and from iron. At some point, it seems as if love is winning.
Leave the children, unfortunate one, in exile
They will be a delight...
(Ibid., pp. 1253-1254)
But the demon attacks with new weapons, convincing Medea that it is too late, that she is no longer free, whispering to her that “everything is done... there is no more return...” (p. 188). And this is one of the usual tricks of the demon: to convince us that we are no longer free, so that we cease to be free. One more shocking emotional disturbance - and she surrenders to the call for murder. Internal action is unleashed.
As for its external manifestation, it follows with lightning speed. Medea ends it with a verse that has now become very famous:
Only anger
Stronger than me, and there is no one for the mortal race
Fierce and more zealous than the executioner...
(Ibid., pp. 1274-1276)
This is passion, this is rage, the demon that lives in Medea, this is mortal hatred.
Medea gains control of herself. She calmly awaits the news of her rival's death. When a messenger comes to tell her about this, she listens to him with terrifying joy. This story is vivid and almost unbearable. The image of the little princess, this doll figurine, which Jason preferred to the greatness of Medea, radiates the radiance of a pearl - a pearl that is about to be crushed by his heel. The princess initially turns away when she sees her rival's children, but, attracted by the gifts, she cannot resist trying on the diadem and peplos. The scene in front of the mirror is enchantingly charming in its grace. Suddenly she is struck by pain. The maids for a moment thought it was an epileptic fit. Then this flame appears and sprays from her forehead. And this horror...
Medea listens to this story, experiencing voluptuousness. She enjoys cruelty, absorbs it into herself, drop by drop. Then suddenly a sudden movement: it’s time to act! Action awaits her. She's heading there. Some kind of impulses of the heart for her dearly beloved children hover within her. She makes an effort on herself. The argument is over.
She knocks on the door just as the choir calls for the sun to shine. The poet refrains from talking about the death of children. Perhaps the story would have weakened our impression for some moments. The screams of murdered children break through the singing of the choir, this is enough for our nervous tension has reached its limit... The action unfolds with maximum speed. Jason is already here, in front of closed doors. He breaks his fingers trying to open the doors. He wants to avenge his young wife, he wants to save his sons from popular retribution, but the choir shouts to him that his children are already dead. How many tragedies end with the words “it’s too late!” Fate is faster than people.
But here fate is Medea. She appears in the sky on a winged chariot, next to her are the corpses of the children whom both she and Jason loved and who were killed by the mutual hatred of their parents. Medea has now reached her utmost greatness. She paid for her victory at a price greater than her life itself. Jason sends curses to her, and he also turns to her with prayers. But the words of Jason, who knows how to juggle them so much, fall to the ground; they no longer have either power or meaning.
In her terrible triumph, Medea seemed to freeze. There is nothing living in it, nothing but iron. Dispassion, shaken only by the cruel laughter that she throws in Jason's face. And now we know who she is.
Who is she? Clearly, she is a monster. But it is so close to us that, perhaps, anyone can become such a monster. Let's try to understand.
Medea is, first of all, a heart consumed by passion. She loved Jason. This is certain. She loved him out of passion, but she also loved him for the sake of fame. He was one of her conquests, and it flattered her vanity. Now she hates him. It seems that hatred in her has taken over everything. She hates in Jason not the one she still loves, as it happens. Her hatred is caused by both lost love and wounded pride: she hates in Jason the one who humiliated her, the one who personifies the denial of her own strength. And in order to reaffirm this rejected power in the eyes of others and especially in her own eyes, she kills her children, mortally wounding their father with the same blow, thereby taking revenge on him for her humiliation.
She loves her children. They are her “favorites.” She loves that bright smile that makes her heart skip a beat.
fell
And my heart is when their faces
I see a bright smile...
(Ibid., pp. 1233-1235)
She always loves them: both when she tenderly caresses them, but also when she kills them. She kills them so that her enemies do not laugh at her. She kills them because her terrifying thirst for domination has turned into a “demon” (this word appears many times in the text), over which she no longer has power. And isn’t this “demon” a force that came from outside? Or is it a criminal rage that dwells in the unconscious depths of her being? Perhaps both. Medea doesn't know this, she only knows that this force is stronger than her will, and she says it.
All this is not only the real psychology of strength, and extreme strength. Medea's clear will gives way to her passion. This passion lives in her and owns her. It is the demonic element that dwells in her tender mother's heart. It's psychology, but - in other words - it's also obsession. Psychological forces are indistinguishable from the forces that govern the universe. And we ourselves, are we separate from the universe? And here’s the question: where does psychological realism, discovered by Euripides, lead? Euripides emphasizes in the demonic passion of Medea our belonging to the world as a whole, our dependence on the “cosmos”. But to realize this means to be freed in some way from this dependence. The truth of tragedy is the power that liberates.
Euripides does not speak definitely about the nature of this demonic force. But what it shows with complete clarity is the terrifying complexity of our heart, unknown to ourselves. He also shows that this force living in us is tragic because we are powerless in the fight against it and that it destroys us.
Medea died irrevocably at the very moment of celebration. The obstacles that have hitherto always restored her power, these obstacles no longer exist. Even maternal love itself has been overcome. But now, in her victory, she will break into emptiness.
And the death of Medea, figuratively speaking, is perceived by us not as retribution, but as the fulfillment of destiny, the revelation of her nature, which, like any fulfillment, fills us with joy.
Euripides usually takes the legendary plot outline for its tragedies, but at the same time reduces it, brings it closer to life. And if Sophocles showed the heroes as they should be, then Euripides showed them as they are. For him, myth was a plot shell that made it possible to present on stage dramatic collisions that were psychologically reliable at the everyday level.
"Medea"
The first, fundamental position for the creation of psychologism is the configuration of the conflict: after all, the myth in “Medea” is only a decoration against the background of which real, living people play. The conflict is domestic. The problem of the work is unusually close to us, residents of the twenty-first century world, because the motives of love, jealousy and hatred are archetypal. The plot of the tragedy is based on the following events: Jason betrays Medea, renouncing his wife and children in favor of a profitable marriage, bringing the woman’s despair to the limit with low and cynical behavior. Medea decides to take revenge, and her choice falls, of course, on her husband’s new chosen one and on her father, who is guilty of expelling the woman from the city. Deprived of her homeland, with which she broke up long ago for the sake of Jason, deprived of everything she lived for, Medea also kills her children, obeying both despair and reluctance to leave them to the father whom she hates, and the realization that she cannot be a worthy mother to them, as before. . However, Medea herself, in accordance with the nature and integrity of her character, is not able to put up with humiliation. with the same force that she loved, she begins to hate Jason and look for a way to take revenge on him. The idea of infanticide is finally suggested by a meeting with the childless Athenian king Aegeus. In a conversation with him, she understands how a childless man suffers, and decides to take away the most precious thing from Jason. But this blow is simultaneously directed against herself, so Medea does not immediately and with terrible anguish decide to take this step. The heroine changes her intention several times, conflicting feelings struggle within her, and yet gradually a terrible decision matures within her. Before Euripides, the prevailing version of the myth was that children were killed by angry Corinthians upon learning of the death of their king and young princess. Euripides left this to the heroine herself, convincingly showing that, no matter how terrible this act is, Medea, who belongs to proud, powerful natures, unable to forgive insults, could have done this. The viewer cannot accept and forgive Medea for her actions, but understands by whom and how she was driven to commit a crime. Deviations from traditional mythological versions are often found in the tragedies of Euripides. A certain tendency is noticeable behind this: for Euripides, myth is not the sacred history of the people, but material for creativity. In fact, Euripides constrains the framework of myth: the new social and everyday content of his tragedies comes into conflict with the old mythological form. Essentially, Euripides would have had to abandon myth, but this would have been too bold and decisive a violation of tradition, but he certainly brought closer the destruction of the mythological basis of the tragedy.
Human psychology is revealed in its entirety precisely when trying to resolve such conflicts. This can even be explained by the fact that the universal store of knowledge in this area is the most voluminous among all the “collections” of humanity, and the author, describing the behavior of the heroes in such a situation, involuntarily relies on the significant experience of previous generations and compares what is happening in his work with what it happened before: in myths, in art, in his own life.
Monologues and dialogues are of great importance in the tragedies of Euripides. Often this is a dialogue-argument, a dialogue-duel. Euripides loves verbal competitions of heroes in speeches, revealing their essence. Euripides' language is closer to colloquial speech and is better suited for live dialogues. The most striking monologues are again found in Medea. In some of them, Euripides exposes the vicious argumentation of the cunning sophists.
The essence of the monologues is unusual: Euripides combines confession inner monologue with the brightness and liveliness that a person’s speech acquires when he tries to convey his thoughts and feelings to his interlocutor (the interlocutor in a tragedy is the viewer, who needs to be convinced of the realism of what is happening, immersed in the world of tragedy). Monologues, on the contrary, contain many techniques of oratory, showing the powerful mind of the heroes and the complexity of the struggle that they wage - with each other and at the same time - with themselves. Euripides's repeated responses to modern philosophical trends gave him a reputation as a "philosopher on the stage."
In addition, Euripides leaves a large number of remarks on the pages of the tragedy. Often they are not only detailed, but also psychological in nature, like this one, describing Medea and her children:
(Attracts children who are cheerful, still full of memories of their walk.)
Naturally, in the new historical conditions, Euripides is primarily interested in the individual, private person, the sphere of his personal, not public life. In accordance with such a shift in the angle of view, the collision of a person with opposing forces, which is necessary for tragedy, Euripides transfers to the plane of the human soul, depicting the conflict of a person with himself. The actions, and as a result, their misfortunes and sufferings of the heroes usually stem from their own characters. Thus, in comparison with his predecessors, Euripides focuses more on depicting the inner world of the heroes. The playwright creates a number of diverse characters, depicting various emotional impulses, contradictory states, revealing their regularity and the inevitability of a tragic outcome. The viewer is present at the subtlest emotional experiences of the characters and discovers the complexity of human nature. The emphasis on depicting the psychology of the characters leads to the secondary importance of dramatic intrigue. Euripides no longer pays as much attention to the construction of action as, say, Sophocles, although the dramatic conflicts in his plays are sharp and intense. But let us pay attention, for example, to the beginnings and ends of his dramas. Often in the prologue, Euripides not only gives the beginning of the tragedy, but also tells its main content in advance, in order to, as a result, switch the viewer’s attention from the intrigue to its psychological development. The endings of Euripides' dramas are also indicative. He neglects the natural development and completeness of the action and therefore in the finale he often offers a sudden, external, artificial denouement, usually associated with the intervention of a deity appearing on a special theatrical machine (“eorem”). Therefore, it is no coincidence that later such a method of resolving an action began to be called “deus ex machina” (“god from the machine”).
The chorus also occupies an artificial position in Euripides' tragedies. In accordance with tradition, the choral parts are preserved, but the choir is not organically included in the action. So, for example, he is present in such actions and speeches of characters that are usually hidden from outsiders. Thus, Medea tells the chorus about her intention to kill the children; the choir listening to her is shocked, says that it is necessary to intervene, to prevent her intentions, but, naturally, does nothing, otherwise there would be no tragedy. The lyrical element of tragedy, expressed in the songs of the choir, loses its former meaning in Euripides, and the dramatic play of the characters, their actions, and deeds comes to the fore. It is significant that, in accordance with this, Euripides transfers the lyrical part to the characters: he introduces so-called monodies, arias of the characters, which were also accompanied by expressive plasticity and created a high artistic effect.
Composition
MEDEA (Latin Medea, German Medea) - 1) the heroine of Euripides’ tragedy “Medea” (431 BC). IN Greek mythology M. is a sorceress, the daughter of the king of Colchis, who helped Jason and the Argonauts get the Golden Fleece, and then fled with them and became Jason’s wife. IN famous tragedy This was not the first time that Bvripid turned to the image of M.: he made his debut with the tragedy “Peliada”, where she was also the main character. In that drama, M. insidiously forced the daughters of the Thessalian king Pelias to kill their father, suggesting that by doing so they would restore his youth. For his famous tragedy, the poet chose the Corinthian episode of the myth about M., and its most tragic version: he needed a guilty heroine, and if, as one version of the legend claims, it was not she who killed the children, but the Corinthians avenging the death of the king and the princesses, then an open clash of the tyrant’s deceit and revenge on the part of the victim would be too banal for a tragedy. "Guided highest meaning “, the poet gave us in this tragedy a minimun of immediate horror and filth of action, in order to make us feel all the more powerfully its terrible price” (I.F. Annensky). At the beginning of the drama, the heroine does not appear on stage: her faithful nurse describes the terrible anger that seized her mistress when she learned of Jason’s betrayal. M. herself appears a little later - in order to, having mastered herself, explain to the Corinthian women (they sympathize with her grief) their own and common misfortunes for all women: “I would prefer to stand behind a shield three times than to give birth once...” Then the king appears Creon announces her expulsion along with the children. She asks - and receives - a day of reprieve, having already decided to destroy the king and princess, but without thinking through her revenge in detail. Then Jason appears. This image in Euripides is not at all heroic. Rather, he is a sophist, a cynic with a well-spoken tongue, who convinces M. that he did her a favor by bringing her to Hellas and thereby saving her from vegetating in obscurity in his barbaric country; entering into a new marriage, Jason, being indebted for salvation not to her, but to Cyprida, to top it all off, offers her money for the journey. To this she exclaims: “O Zeus, why did you give people exact signs of fake gold, but if anyone needs to recognize a worthless person, he does not have any mark on his body?” But, having met with Aegeus and secured his consent to give her refuge (this scene caused the greatest rejection; it was considered unnecessary or even interfering with the overall impression), M. comes to her final decision and talks to Jason differently. Pretending to agree with his arguments, she asks him to persuade the bride and Creon to leave the children in Corinth, to whom she gives a precious gift for the bride, poisoned with poison. When vengeance is accomplished, and Jason, who has lost his bride, comes for M., he no longer finds his children alive, and the sorceress M. hides in the chariot of her grandfather Helios, drawn by dragons. “She is tormented not by Eros, but by Erinyes, and M. is by no means an abandoned lover who mourns the lost joys of marriage” - in these words I. F. Annensky accurately formulated the meaning of the image. The tragedy of Euripides gained exceptional popularity in ancient times and in modern times. It served as the author's calling card. Some of her images were especially loved, many times repeated by later poets (for example, the initial remark of the nurse and the characterization given by M. Jason, calling her “a lioness, not a woman, wilder than the Tyrrhenian Scylla” - used by Kuchelbecker in Russian poetry in "Argives"). On Latin language Ennius translated the tragedy - and it was enough for Cicero to quote its beginning in court so that it would become clear to all the numerous listeners what was at stake. However, excessive popularity somewhat harmed understanding. Along with late antiquity, classicism highly valued Euripides; however romantic school placed him below other Greek tragedians; A.-W. Schlegel noted significant shortcomings from the point of view of dramatic technique in the development of the image: “As soon as she appears on stage, the poet takes care to cool us down with the help of general and banal reasoning that he puts into her mouth.” However, Schlegel admits that the poet “touchingly portrayed in one person a powerful sorceress and weak woman, submissive to all the infirmities of the sex." S.P. Shevyrev goes even further in his rejection of the image: “M. represents for us a type of cunning and insidious woman who uses the guise of meekness and humility in order to take revenge on betrayal and insult”; regarding the murder of children: “the terrible in a woman turns into the disgusting.” An atmosphere of decadence was needed for M.’s image to regain popularity and begin to influence literature. 2) The heroine of the epic of Apollonius of Rhodes “Argonautica” (approximately 60s of the 3rd century BC). Her image is a contrast to Euripides: Apollonius’ M. is indecisive, pious, she hesitates for a long time before obeying the imperious call of love (instilled in her by Eros on the orders of Hera and Athena), waits for the persuasion of her sister Chalciope and, only after listening to them, only Having decided to break the tragic knot by suicide and feeling the fear of death, she decides to commit her own - as she perceives it - crime. Her further actions are flight, the murder of her brother, whom she lures into a trap, a constant fear of extradition (on the island of the Phaeacians, where the Argonauts resort to the intercession of King Alcinous and his wife Arete, she becomes the wife of Jason, since Alcinous decided to extradite her to the Colchians, if she did not marry) - only the consequences of her initial betrayal and her father’s anger, which leaves her no hope of salvation except the patronage of the Argonauts. She cannot watch Jason kill her brother and turns away, covering her face with the edge of her peplos. She, of course, is far from the hot and unbridled determination of Euripides’ heroine. The epic ends with the safe return of the Argonauts; it does not include either the episode with the daughters of Pelias or the Corinthian events. Despite the great popularity of the epic of Apollonius of Rhodes and the very important role, which M. plays in it, her image in its influence cannot be compared with M. Euripides, even in Latin literature. 3) M. in Ovid. Unfortunately - especially since it was favorite piece poet - Ovid's tragedy "Medea" has not been preserved. However, one of the most significant episodes in the Metamorphoses (beginning of canto VII; epic) is dedicated to this heroine (not counting the message in the youthful “Heroids”, which is dependent on both Euripides and Apollonius and does not create an independent image that would deserve attention). created in the first years of A.D.). Ovid's M. is devoid of any tragic features. The poet chooses for his epic not a Corinthian episode, but a Colchian and Thessalian one. The heroine’s internal struggle is depicted according to all the rules of rhetoric, with the subtlest nuances of methods of persuasion and persuasion, and receives an almost parodic tone: “So, I will betray my sister, brother, gods and native land? However, my father is too harsh, the land is barbaric, my brother is small, and my sister is for me.” This state is expressed by a magnificent aphorism: “I see the best and approve of it, but I follow the worst,” later repeated by Petrarch and embedded by M.V. Lomonosov in a very close translation (“I see the best and, seeing, I praise, // But after the worst, O heaven, I hasten”) into the mouth of Demophon in the tragedy of the same name. Within this parody, the description mental life the heroine very subtly: for example, Ovid notes that M., despite all his charms, fears for Jason when he goes through his trials. Ovid consistently eliminates the tragic details: one of the most terrible atrocities committed by M. is murder sibling, present as an episode in Apollonius of Rhodes and as a background in Euripides, he films using another version of the myth, according to which Apsyrtus is still a child and cannot pursue her. At her husband's request, the sorceress restores his father's youth (rejecting his desire to sacrifice his own years for the latter's sake). The episode with the daughters of Pelias is devoid of the naive rationalism of the first Euripidean drama: the ram truly turns into a lamb. And when the Thessalian king is killed, M. hides in his famous chariot. A veil has been thrown over the Corinthian episode of her history. The advantages of Ovid's image of M. - subtlety and wit in the description of psychological details - are common for this poet, and therefore this episode is far from the most popular in "Metamorphoses". 4) The heroine of Seneca’s tragedy “Medea” (attempts to accurately date Seneca’s tragedies (4 - 65 AD) remain nothing more than hypotheses). Basically "Medea" by Seneca repeats storyline Euripides' drama (the main digressions will be noted), but its atmosphere and color are completely different: this is due to the fact that Seneca wrote for reading, and not for theatrical production, due to the different style of the era (Euripides' reaction to the pressing demands of educated Athenian society was generally of little interest readers, but the style of Nero’s era already left its mark, not at all conducive to limiting literature to a minimum of immediate horror). Because of this, the remarks of Seneca’s heroes are, as it were, polarized: either a lengthy lyrical part (such as, for example, the introduction, where M. calls upon the head of her enemies all the most terrible horrors that her feverish imagination suggests - in full agreement with the style of the era), or a short, sharp aphorism (especially the dispute between M. and Creon, transformed by the Latin poet from a subtle psychological duel into a judicial dispute about the law): “When a decision is made, it’s too late to talk about it”; “Whoever decides something without listening to the other side, decides unfairly, even if he decides fairly.” (One of the aphorisms, “I will become her!”, in response to the call of the nurse: “Medea!” - provoked a witty remark from W. Willamowitz-Mellendorff: “This Medea has already read “Medea” by Euripides.”) M. in this tragedy, despite to plot proximity, is very different from its Greek prototype: it does not lead the action, but is subordinate to its course. Jason is depicted completely differently: Seneca adds an important touch to motivate his actions - his marriage to Creusa is forced, in order to save his own life and that of his children. This significantly changes the motivation for M.’s actions, depriving her anger of grounds that are convincing to the viewer. Jason sincerely loves his children, she asks permission to take them with her, but is refused - this refusal becomes the reason for the death of the children: she has found a vulnerable spot. After the fire, only intensified by the water, destroys the royal palace, she waits for Jason and kills the children in front of his eyes, then hiding in her chariot and forcing him to admit that there are no gods in the sky through which she flies. The merits of Seneca's theater have often been disputed. But even preferring Euripides to him, even noting that his images had much less influence than the prototype, it is still necessary to admit that the gloomy brightness of his images has its very significant advantages. Lit.: Shevyrev S.P. History of poetry. St. Petersburg, 1892. T.2; Ribbeck O. Ovids Medea. Rheinisches Museum, 1875; Braun W. Die Medea des Seneca // Rheinisches Museum, 1877; Annensky I. F. Tragic Medea // Ashensky I.F. Medea, tragedy of Euripides. St. Petersburg, 1903; Cima A. La Medea di Seneca e la Medea de Ovidio. Atene e Roma, 1904,1908; Bonnar Andre. Return to poetry. Kaplimah. “Argonautica” by Apollonius of Rhodes // Bonnard Andre. Greek civilization. Rostov-on-Don, 1994. T.1; Radtsig S.I. Experience of historical and literary analysis of “Medea” by Euripides // Issues of classical philology. 1969, no. 2. 5) The heroine of P. Corneille’s tragedy “Medea” (1635). Already a well-known comedy writer, Corneille decides to write a tragedy for the first time, paying tribute to the genre that came into fashion in France in the 30s of the 17th century. Relating to ancient theater with undisguised disdain and being a supporter of progress not only in the sciences, but also in the arts, he decides to make significant changes to the versions of the myth about M. proposed by Euripides and Seneca. The playwright's motivations can easily be seen from his own "Analysis" ("Examen", 1660) and from the Dedication addressed to the fictitious Mr. P.T.N.G. Remaining the heroine of the tragedy, Corneille's M. was largely relegated to overall plan thanks to the promotion of other characters: for example, Creon's daughter Creusa, Jason's bride, to whom the author gives declarations of love not only to Jason, but also to Aegeus, whose attention will later be captured by M. The tragedy of fate takes on the distinct features of a love tragedy, in which M. takes revenge for the abused love, but cannot get rid of this love. Her actions are much more reasoned than those of her ancient predecessors, due to the fact that Corneille puts much more text into her mouth. A witch and murderer, M. causes Corneille a chain of terrible events, most of which occur in front of the audience, such as the death of Creon and Creusa, who were poisoned by her. To top off all her dark deeds, Jason stabs himself, who, like a true lover, cannot survive the death of his bride. Despite Corneille's attempts to make the plot more reliable from the point of view of common sense, M. strenuously resists this and in many ways remains the heroine of a myth that the playwright was unable to cope with. Probably, this failure forced him to subsequently create tragedies mainly on historical themes. But in 1660 he made another attempt - a “staged tragedy” called “The Golden Fleece” was born, in which Corneille relied on the poem “The Argonauts” by Virgil’s follower, poet Caius Valerius Flaccus (1st century AD). Trying to penetrate deeper into the motives of M.’s actions, Corneille takes his heroine to the moment of the emergence of her feelings for Jason. Torn between her love for him and the need to betray her family for his sake, M. feels that the stranger is infatuated with her only because she alone can help him get the Golden Fleece. M. wants to be loved for who she is, but the feeling of wounded pride gives way to the desire to be with her beloved and share his success. The second appeal to the myth did not bring Corneille fame, as if M. was taking revenge on the great Frenchman for his arrogant attitude towards ancient authors. Lit.: Mokulsky S. Corneille and his school // History French literature. M.; L., 1946. P.410-412; Maurens G. Introduction // Corneille P. Theatre. V.2P., 1980. P. 18-20. 6) The heroine of F. Grillparzer’s trilogy “The Golden Fleece” (1818-1824). Captivated by the “tragedy of fate” characteristic of German romanticism, the Austrian writer, playwright and theater historian Grillparzer created the most complete dramatic version of M’s “biography”. In the one-act drama “The Guest” she appears as a very young girl suffering the torment of her tyrant father. She manages to prevent the murder of their guest, Phrixus, who fled to Colchis on a golden ram. It was he who sacrificed the ram to Zeus in gratitude for deliverance from death and hung its skin in the sacred grove of Ares. The appearance of the seekers of the Golden Fleece is described in the four-act play “The Argonauts.” In it, M. desperately and unsuccessfully struggles with her feelings for Jason, but against her own will she becomes his assistant and accomplice in the crime. The most famous episode of the “biography” of M. from the “biography” of M., Corinthian, unfolds in the five-act tragedy “Medea”. All of M.’s troubles stem from the fact that in Jason’s homeland she is a foreigner, from barbarian lands, a sorceress and a sorceress. As often happens in the works of the romantics, foreignness lies at the root of many insoluble conflicts. Returning to civilized Corinth, Jason quickly becomes ashamed of his girlfriend, but initially refuses to drive her away at Creon's request. Only having fallen in love with his daughter, he himself takes up arms against M. Main tragic theme Grillparzer's loneliness becomes a problem (even her children avoid her and are ashamed). It is obvious that she cannot get rid of this punishment in Delphi, where she flees after the murder of her sons and Creusa. Grillparzer seems to be the only one who tried to trace the development of M.’s character, collecting and building the individual stages of her path to a monstrous crime. A romantic writer does not seek to justify his heroine; it is important for him to discover the motives of her actions. The incompatibility of the two worlds, M. and Jason, the Greeks and the Colchians, is expressed at the level of language: the pressure and ragged rhythm of the tense, word-choking free verse in the mouths of M. and her fellow tribesmen comes into inevitable conflict with the clearly rhythmic and measured blank verse spoken the Austrian romantic has Greeks. The daughter of a barbarian country, M. Grillparzer, who did not accept the fate prepared for her and rebelled against someone else’s way of life, turned out to be very attractive to the German theater at the turn of the 60-70s of the 20th century, as evidenced by numerous productions of Medea. Lit.: Lobko L. Grillpartser // History of Western European theater. M., 1964. T.4. P.275-290; Kaiser J. GriUpaizers dramen Stil, 1962. 7) The heroine of J. Anouilh’s play “Medea” (1946). This is the “blackest” of all his “black plays”. Among the rebellious heroines, Anuya M. is the only murderer. Her reluctance to accept the arguments of reason and common sense indicates a vicious obsession with the idea of her right to another person. The dialogue between M. and Jason, which makes up most of the play, reveals the entire abyss of misunderstanding between people who are firmly connected by passion and shed blood. After ten years of normal family life, in which she seemed to be able to forget about the crimes she had once committed for the sake of her beloved, M. seems to wake up from a dream, having learned about her husband’s betrayal. She gives birth to hatred as her third child, as a girl who will avenge her. This metaphor refers us to the mythological basis of the play, perhaps to a greater extent than the names of its characters: the playwright is trying in every possible way to reduce, translate into household plan the words and actions of their characters, who are much more reminiscent of the people of the 40s of the 20th century than the heroes of antiquity. The integrity and passion of M. Anuyev’s nature are based on ruthlessness and cruelty that knows no compromise. No gods, no fate, no fate has power over her; she is “from the race of those who judge and decide without returning to the decisions made.” M.'s egocentrism deprives her of the ability to give at least some moral assessment of her decisions. Twice using children as instruments of revenge (sending them with a poisoned diadem to Creusa, and then killing them to break Jason), she does not, unlike her predecessors, mourn their fate. Before cutting his sons' throats, M. calls them vile little deceivers, in whose eyes there is a trap, because... they are future men. She revels in the horror and fear in the eyes of Jason, who learned about the death of the children: everything she did was done for the sake of this expression in the eyes of the man who betrayed her. But she also decides her fate herself: if in Euripides, Seneca, Corneille M. left the scene of the crime in a chariot flying through the sky, then in Anui she burns herself along with the corpses of her sons in a cart that was supposed to take her away from Corinth forever. The play does not end with this self-immolation: having posted a guard at the ashes, Jason leaves, and in the pre-dawn silence a leisurely conversation begins between the Guard and the Nurse about the simple joys of life, about the harvest of bread, about the harvest, about the fact that the coming day promises to be clear. The meaning of the ending is different than in Anouilh's Antigone. There, the continuation of the lives of indifferent people was perceived as an inability even heroic deed awaken people's conscience. M.'s death brings deliverance from a terrible and evil force that destroys normal peaceful life. “Behind each of the “black plays” one can discern the original source, a reminder of which makes one feel the extent to which Jean Anouilh profanes the tragic pathos so that it becomes accessible to the regulars of the Boulevard Theater,” wrote the famous French critic A. Simon, accusing the playwright of he caters to the tastes of the “lazy public.” Staged in 1953 by A. Barsak, this version of the myth about M. event theatrical life didn't.
EURIPIDES (c. 480-406 BC) The last of the triad of great Greek tragedians was born sixteen years later than Sophocles and died in the same year. Euripides wrote from 75 to 90 tragedies, but only 17 have reached us. It is known that Euripides was disliked by his contemporaries, even those who recognized him huge talent. To the Athenians he seemed arrogant and proud. But his main problem was that as a thinker he was ahead of his time (and those who rose above the crowd were not liked at all times). Unlike Sophocles, who created heroic images, Euripides’ heroes are people “as they are.” Above all, he placed freedom and independence of the individual. In his tragedies he acted as an expert in human psychology. If Sophocles' heroes opposed each other, then Euripides showed not only the struggle of individuals, but (most importantly) the internal struggle in the souls of people.
In Euripides there is a further development of the very construction of tragedy. The role of the chorus is reduced, the myth now plays only the role of a kind of shell for the plot, into which a complex intrigue is often introduced; The dialogues are skillfully constructed. Not fully understood by his contemporaries, Euripides became a favorite playwright among subsequent generations. Further development drama was predicted by him: a feature was immersion in the inner world of a person, his psychology. . Aristophanes made an unusual move into criticism of contemporary literature - a phenomenon that was unknown to all subsequent Hellenic criticism.
The work of Euripides reflects the interest in the individual and his aspirations characteristic of the period of crisis of the polis; monumental images raised above the ordinary level, as the embodiment of generally binding norms, are alien to him. He is best at painting pictures of vices, strong affects, and pathological conditions. His strong point is the passion, impetuosity, and impetuosity of his characters. Displaying the dynamics of feeling and passion is especially characteristic of Euripides. For the first time in ancient literature, he clearly poses psychological problems, especially the disclosure of female psychology. The significance of Euripides’ work for world literature is primarily in the creation female images. Euripides finds useful material for depicting passions using the theme of love. The tragedy “Medea” is especially interesting in this regard. A tragedy that paints in bloody colors the theme of rejected love.
And Euripides’ tragedies reflected the transformation of his contemporary society. But his painful and often cruel searches rarely ended in finding the truth. In the same regard, the gods do not play a significant role in his tragedies. Everyone is disappointed.
From different options In the myth of Medea, Euripides chooses the one in which she is most cruel: hiding from her father’s persecution, Medea kills her younger brother Aspirtus and scatters pieces of his body so that her father will be delayed in collecting them. Medea defeats the dragon and finally Medea kills her own children. Medea Euripides did everything for Jason, to the most terrible crimes, and in tragedy she was not as powerful as she was in some myths. According to one myth, she is the daughter of the king of Colchis, Aeetes, and the Oceanid Idia, the granddaughter of Helios and the niece of Circe. And in another way, Medea’s mother is the patroness of sorceresses, Hecate, and Circe is her sister.
Apparently, Euripides deliberately chooses the myth that explains the root cause of the collapse of the family of Medea and Jason: Eros, at the request of Athena and Hera, instilled in Medea a passionate love for Jason, but her love was unrequited, and he married her only because he gave a promise in exchange for her help. Those. on Jason’s part, it was a marriage of convenience, which is why it was so easy for him to abandon Medea and children for the sake of the royal throne of Corinth.
Medea - central character tragedy. The main characteristic of the image of Medea is her passionate temperament, which makes all her feelings excessive and ultimately leads to an act that, according to Jason, is completely unthinkable for a Greek woman - the murder of her own children. Medea is the antithesis of the egoist and selfish Jason; in her soul, love for children collides with hatred of her betrayed husband and the desire to take revenge on him. Medea's main opponent throughout the tragedy is Jason. Initially, the position of Medea was described by Euripides as that of a victim. She is passive, misfortunes rain down on her one after another, betrayal is complemented by exile, and she does not know what to oppose to this, except for an unformed desire for revenge, which is commented by the chorus as completely fair and legal. The chorus also does not object to her intention to kill her rival. However, the strength of Medea's response gradually increases. The turning point is the appearance of the Athenian king Aegeus in her house. Aegeus is childless, and his grief apparently makes Medea think about killing children, which will be the most terrible revenge.
Repeatedly in his tragedies Euripides returns to the question of a woman’s place in the family, putting a wide variety of opinions into the mouths of the characters. The image of Phaedra was used by conservative opponents of Euripides in order to create his reputation as a “misogynist.” However, he treats his heroines with undisguised sympathy. The author pities the woman because she has become a hostage to her own position as the wife of a traitorous husband, a hostage to her own feelings. This explains some of the cruelty of the work. Euripides avoids a direct answer to the question of where evil comes from in the world. But he confidently answers the question of where evil in a person comes from - from passions. Love also becomes a passion and leads to the most terrible of passions - jealousy. From it flows mercilessness, cruelty, rage. Passions can be defeated only by the power of reason, otherwise passion will completely take over the soul and blind it. Medea's monologue is an attempt to understand herself. Changes in feelings are replaced by introspection and introspection.
