Medea2.0001_ChaffeyCaldwell

0612Jason_Comparison

OGCMA s.v. "Medea"
Classical Sources:
Hesiod Theogony, 956ff.
Pindar, Pyth. 4.9ff.
Herodotus, 8.62
Euripides, Medea, passim
Euripides, Peleiades, fragments
Ap. Rhod., Argo., 3 and 4
Ennius, Medea Exul
Accius, Medea
Diodorus Siculus, Bibl. 4.48-52, 54-55
Ovid Heroides, 6 and 12
Ovid Met. 7.1-400
Apollodorus Libr. 1.9.23-28; Epit. 5.5
Seneca, Medea
Pausanias, 2.3.6-11, 2.12.1, 5.18.3, 8.9.1-3, 8.11.2
Hyginus Fab. 25-27
Lucian, Dialogues of the Dead, 9 "Menippus and Tiresias"

Two views of Medea ... or of Jason, present and absent. Jason is one of ancient literature's most complex heroes.

The view on the left shows Jason in the age of the space program, the husband of an astronaut's wife. The future is so bright. It is an optimistic view of Jason the Argonaut.

The view on the right is a still from the production of Roberts Jeffers' production of Euripides' Medea. The effects of Jason's actions within the later part of his career wreck havoc on his wife and children. Zoe Caldwell and the Nurse show in their faces the pessimism of a life after Jason.

Side-by-side images showing Medea from a movie cover ("before") and an actress portraying Medea ("after")

OGCMA slides are designed by Roger T. Macfarlane for use in Classical Civilization 241 courses at Brigham Young University.
The present resource contains information assembled for The Oxford Guide to Classical Mythology in the Arts, 1300 - 1990's, edited by J. Davidson Reid (Oxford 1994), and it is used with express permission from Oxford University press.
Address concerns or inquiries to macfarlane@byu.edu.