Medea
Abandoned by Jason and threatened with exile, Medea destroys his new marriage and kills their children. Seneca’s version gives particular force to self-address, magic and the heroine’s deliberate creation of an identity through revenge.
Understanding the text
Seneca wrote as a Roman senator and imperial adviser as well as a Stoic moralist. His wealth, exile and proximity to Nero give questions of freedom and power a concrete, often uncomfortable setting. Dates and the ordering of individual works remain debated. Distinguish a rhetorical situation or dramatic character from the author’s settled doctrine, and test a striking maxim against the argument surrounding it.
Key points
- 01
Exclusion
Medea’s foreignness and threatened expulsion sharpen the unequal conditions under which the marriage breaks apart.
- 02
Self-formation
Her declarations of becoming Medea connect deliberate self-fashioning with an escalating commitment to destructive action.
- 03
Revenge
Injuring Jason requires destroying people whom Medea also loves, revealing vengeance as an attack on her own relationships.
How to read it
Track changes in her self-address and separate recognition of her vulnerability from approval of her actions.
Editions & sources
Summaries and key points are original editorial interpretations. They accompany reading the work and do not replace an edition of the text. Editorial method ↗