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Medea and Electra | Introduction

The Life and Work of Euripides
Perhaps more than any of the other dramatists of the Greek classic age, Euripides appeals to modern audiences. Compared to the work of Aeschylus and Sophocles—the only other writers of tragedies whose work has survived the millenia—Euripides’ plays treat the human side of the dilemmas they present in a way that still captures our imagination.

In his work, Euripides is not content to believe in the ultimate wisdom and goodness of the gods, and his heroes and heroines are not the almost superhuman figures that appear in other plays of the age. Like the other dramatists, Euripides drew his characters from the realm of myth and tales of epic heroism, but his protagonists are drawn on a more human scale. Some commentators go so far as to credit him with the birth of an early form of “psychological drama.”

Euripides’ characters often challenge divine wisdom, disrupt divine order, and face situations for which there are no easy answers in their attempts to make sense of their world. In this, they are rarely guided or opposed by the actual presence of divinities on stage, unlike the heroes and heroines of Aeschylus and Sophocles.

Although it is difficult to pinpoint exactly the circumstances of his birth, life and death, scholars have been able to piece together a rather rough outline. He was most probably born in 484 B.C., four years before Athens was victorious in the Persian Wars. The son of a merchant and a high–born woman, he grew to maturity in the time in which Athens reached its height as the center of democracy and culture in the ancient Greek world.

Among the thinkers who influenced Euripides’ own intellectual develepment were Anaxagoras, Protagoras, Aeschylus, and his pupil, Socrates. Some of these philosophers came to be categorized as “Sophists,” a term which originally meant “professional teachers” but later took on more derogatory connotations. It was associated with those who taught the skills necessary to win in public debates—skills which relied more on persuasive speaking abilities than on a commitment to the truth. (The reader might keep this in mind when considering the relative skills of Medea and her opponents in the debates which occur in Medea.)

But it was as a poet, not a philosopher, that Euripides has left his mark on subsequent generations. He entered his first dramatic competition in 455 B.C., and took his first top prize (for a play that has not survived) in 441 B.C. In those days, playwrighting competitions were a key part in festivals marking various religious occasions. His Medea was written in 431 B.C.; Electra, in approximately 412 B.C. In all, he composed 92 plays, only 19 of which survived intact.

Much of his work was well received, building his reputation not only in Athens, but in other cities in the Greek world. Five of his plays took top prizes; several more took second in the final rounds of the dramatic competitions. Others fared less well, perhaps because they challenged contemporary notions of religious tradition, social mores, and the content of the legends from which he drew his material. Such legends were sacred to Athens, proving the divine sanction of her status as leader of the Greek empire. To change or question them would have seemed an act approaching heresy and treason, though Euripides was not the loudest of the voices against tradition in his time.

Much of his work was completed during the Pelopponesian wars that eventually destroyed Athens; in repsonse, some of his plays are overtly patriotic, while others are just as critical of Athens’ role in those wars. Sometime after 408 B.C., Euripides left Athens for Macedonia, where he composed perhaps his greatest work, The Bacchae. He died there two years later. According to legend, he spent his final days in solitude, living in caves overlooking the sea.

Despite a long history of scholarly debates over the merits of Euripides’ work, the fact remains that none of the other playwrights of the period has been more often produced or quoted in the centuries that have followed. Some scholars have dismissed his work for being too “easy,” for lacking artistic unity, or for dwelling too often on the sordid side of life. Many others have praised it for its innovative and experimental qualities, and its honest approach to difficult and sometimes impossible situations. Yet Euripides’ commitment to exploring both sides of the dramatic debates he stages, and his deep interest in the underlying psychological and emotional bases for human motivation, have created dramas that continue to haunt our imagination more than 2000 years later.

Medea and Electra Summary

Summary of the Play - Medea
After having successfully stolen the Golden Fleece, Jason has been living in exile in Corinth with Medea and their children. On the day of the play’s action, Jason abandons Medea, who is a native of Colchis and is considered to be a barbarian, to marry the daughter of the king of Corinth. Jason argues that by so doing he will be able to establish a legitimate line of heirs.

Because Medea’s reputation as a sorceress has preceded her, she is viewed as a threat to Corinth if she remains there. Creon, the Corinthian king and Jason’s new father–in–law, decides to protect himself and his family by banishing Medea from the kingdom. Gaining the sympathy of the Corinthian women, Medea begs for, and receives, one more day to get her affairs in order. She uses this time to plot her revenge against Jason and Creon.

First, she secures the promise of safe harbor from Aegeus, the king of Athens, in return for curing him of his impotence. Then she sends her children to the princess, bearing a wedding gift of a robe and crown she has poisoned, so that the wearer and anyone who touches its wearer will die a horrible death. The gift is accepted and the princess is killed. In trying to save her, her father Creon is also destroyed. Finally, Medea wreaks her most terrible act of vengeance. After much soul searching, she murders her own children by the sword, thus effectively cutting off Jason’s present and future bloodlines.

When Jason returns from the palace, after having lost his bride, the Chorus informs him of Medea’s other deed. He vows to kill her, but she is already out of reach in a chariot bound for Athens. In despair, he begs her to let him bury the children’s bodies, a request she denies him. Instead, she bears them off with her, to bury them in a place where none of her enemies can desecrate their graves—leaving Jason and the Chorus to mourn before the gods, who may or may not hear their call.

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