6.
Title: [Medea]
Author: Euripides
Genre: Drama
Medium: Kindle
Acquisition:
Date Completed: January 16, 2016
Rating: *****

Euripides' Medea, first performed in 431 BCE, is a drama revealing the lethal consequences of abandonment and jealousy, following Jason's preferment of his new bride, the daughter of Creon, over his former wife, the titular Medea.  Though the play can be easily appreciated without familiarity with the general mythology (as I myself approached it), Medea has a longer narrative in Greek mythology than that of Euripides' drama. In the play, Medea seeks revenge against both Jason and Creon for her current abandonment in a gendered cacophony of spite, manipulation, a woman's method of murder (poison), and magic. It is a complicated meditation on the idea of atonement and punishment, and the tenuous position of the forgotten wife.  Though Jason is, to modern readers, clearly in the wrong, the character of Medea is complicated, as her actions may prevent contemporary readers from sympathizing with her plight, while opening the character as a fascinating object of study for gender and agency.

I reread Medea specifically to inform a reading of another text, and it lost none of its fascination in a second reading.