For tomorrow you will get a little break as you will be exempt from the journal entry. Please make a comment here on how the reading is going but no journal necessary.
I felt we needed to continue with tragedy here because it is the realm if Dionysus and directly inspired by him. The tragic stories we will read emphasize the suffering attached to the human condition as opposed to comedy which focuses on the human spirits triumph over suffering. It is very interesting to think about Medea as a heroine, albeit a tragic one. She was prone to lose control as we will see, but her power as a woman was not respected. There were definitely two sets of rules for men and women. Medea was not the usual character depicted by the Greeks and her bold action would even catch attention, and possibly scorn, today.
As you begin to read the play keep in mind that the Greeks did not allow violence to occur onstage. Therefore the gruesome acts you read about are embellished simply because they cannot be shown. As the text suggests, this allows violence to retain its noble character when the context is "appropriate". However, in this case the descriptions you will read will hardly ennoble anything or anyone. In fact the story of Medea remind a little of the story of Job who could not catch a break by following his heart. Sometimes heroes are ahead of their time, or even not of this world and their actions attract censure because they are not understood. We will get more into that next week when we begin our exploration of the monomyth and talk more about Joseph Campbell and his work. For now, keep your eye on Medea and stay focused on tragedy.
Also think about why this might have been as popular as it was: The festival of Dionysus attracted as many people as a modern NFL game would attract. This was thousands of years before flush toilets, modern food convenience etc. Why would people come from all over Greece for this festival and to see this theater?
