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Euripides' Life in Medea

Major Critics

By Jessica Jeong, Miriam Halim & Katie Nolan

The Changes It Made

The rise and sophistication of biographical criticism promoted close reading and New criticism.

Euripides was one of the great Athenian playwrights and poets of ancient Greece. In his life he was an outsider to society, but then found a wife and had several children. Soon after his wedding, his wife cheated on him multiple times. Because of this, he went back to his old ways as a hermit from his birthplace, Salamis. In Medea, her husband betrays her and marries a new woman. Through spite, Medea kills her children and her husband’s new wife. Euripides implements his hostility towards love into his novel to portray the emotions he feels while capturing Medea’s feelings as well.

“She might as well be a rock or a wave of the sea. Sometimes she turns that beautiful face away and speaks to herself alone” (12).

This description is the ultimate definition of the common man. There is nothing more arbitrary than a wave or a rock; there is an abundance of them. Euripides is known for his common, simplistic characters, rather than the heroic protagonist that was commonly used at that time.

“‘Pride is common enough everywhere. But sometimes people are accused of being arrogant simply because they live a quiet life. The world is quick to blame. Truth means nothing. People have no patience. They will not wait to find out a man’s true character’” (18).

Euripides is conveying his opinion about the common man, who is normally excluded from the role of the hero because of their simple qualities.

“‘Women are weak--we are not brave. When we hear the roar of battle, see the flash of steel, we cringe’” (19).

Heroes are generally classified as brave, strong, and impenetrable. However, Medea's description of women, which includes herself, is just the opposite. This statement reveals how Medea cannot be a true hero because she possesses the qualities described above.

  • Samuel Johnson “Lives of the Poets”
  • George Alexander Kennedy states in The Cambridge History of Literary Criticism: Classical Criticism, that “The works of authors were read as sources of information about their lives, personalities and interests. Some of this material was then used by other commentators and critics to explain passages in their works. The process became a circular one in that, though Peripatetic biographers utilized external evidence where available, they had little to go on and quarried the texts for hints.”
  • Jackson J. Benson focuses on the importance of understanding the author as a unique individual who is a separate entity from the reader in "Steinbeck: A Defense of Biographical Criticism"
  • John Worthen: 'The fact that we want an emergent sense of the inevitable development suggests the enormously soothing quality which biographies have come to have in our age.

BE CAREFUL!

Biographical criticism can be easily confused with historical criticism.

The Origin

Although there is no specific origin of biographical criticism, we can easily trace it back to the aspect of perceiving divine messages:

  • The Pagans believed it was the “breath of the gods” that inspired them to write, while Protestant Christians credited the Holy Spirit for their “revelation.”

Prophecy, prophets, and those who could hear the word of the divine all initiated the belief that those who had the ability to write from such “visions” should be revered and held at a status above all others.

Biographical Criticism

Peak of Influence

Historical criticism focuses on how the social, cultural, and intellectual context influences the message of the work. Biographical criticism focuses more on how the author’s personal life influenes the story.

For example:

If Beloved was looked through a historical lens:

Beloved is intended to address the unspoken stories of many generation of oppressed blacks by bringing to light the story of Margaret Garner, a slave woman who chose to kill her own child in order to protect them from slavery.

If Beloved was looked through a biographical lens:

Due to Morrison’s personal attachment to slavery, she implements into her novel the impact slavery has on a black individual. However, instead of focusing Beloved on slavery, she focuses more on the black community and its dynamic qualities. Her grandfather had moved his family from Kentucky to Ohio after realizing that there was no possible chance of improving the racism and poverty there. Because of her love and admiration for black people, she works to portray them as more than simply victims of slavery.

The Romantic era (1789-1835) placed focus on the individuality of the poet:

  • This was expressed using the terms “sensibility” and “genius.”
  • Sensibility can be defined as “one’s emotional makeup.”
  • Natural genius involves the imagination and inspiration of the poet, usually based upon personal experiences and events.

As the Romantic period concluded, critics began searching for authors’ personal, original insight within their works.

Thesis

Examples

The failures in Euripides’ life caused him to develop Medea as a play not focused on the fall of a valiant hero, but rather on the tragedies that plague the common man, in this case, Medea.

JANE EYRE by Charlotte Bronte

Later in her life, Charlotte Bronte married a man named Revered A. B. Nicholls, whom she did not truly love. It is inferred that Bronte’s regrets over this marriage are reflected in Jane Eyre, except unlike Bronte, Jane is able to leave a doomed relationship to return to Rochester, the man she really loves. The heroine Jane goes on a journey to find her true being. Along the way, she finds herself at the edge of agreeing to travel across the world with St. John. If she were to go on this mission with him, she would be forced to become his wife. While Jane admires St. John, she does not really love him. Jane overcomes the odds of being neglected and becomes her own individual. In addition, Charlotte Bronte attended Roe Head School and later attempted to create a school. Similarly, Jane attended a school similar to that of the author, and unlike the author, successfully created her own school.

WIDE SARGASSO SEA by Jean Rhys

Jean Rhys’ life consisted of prostitution, divorces, alcoholism and an abortion. She found herself relying on the men that contributed to the destruction of her life. This is prominent in her novel Wide Sargasso Sea, in which the main female character, Antoinette, finds herself desperately reliant on her new husband. Their relationship, similar to what Rhys experienced in her life, created an unhealthy dependence that contributed to the downfall of both characters.

Important Questions to Ask When Looking Through a Biographical Lens

  • What verifiable aspects of the author’s biography show up in his or her work?
  • Do places where the author grew up appear in his or her work?
  • How does the author weave aspects of his or her familial life into the world of the literary text?
  • Does the author address relationships with parents, siblings, or significant others?
  • If so, how do these relationships create meaning in the text?
  • What distinguishes the author from his or her persona in the text? Is there a distinction? How can you tell?

Conclusion

Through the biographical lens, we can conclude that Euripides takes the events from his own life and incorporates it into Medea's life, using her suffering to convey the tragedies that the common man, like himself, faces.

“The life causes the literature, and no understanding of the literature is possible without understanding the life.”

Bibliography

Definition of Biographical Criticism

http://symbiosiscollege.edu.in/wp-content/uploads/2015/03/critisicm.pdf

http://home.olemiss.edu/~egjbp/spring97/litcrit.html

http://parkrose.orvsd.org/mod/resource/view.php?id=8862

http://writingcommons.org/index.php/open-text/genres/academic-writing/literary-criticism/1242-section-2-biographical-criticism-psychological-criticism

http://www.victorianweb.org/authors/bronte/cbronte/brontbio.html

http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/books/features/jean-rhys-prostitution-alcoholism-and-the-mad-woman-in-the-attic-1676252.html

https://sites.google.com/site/gmosleybpcenglish/home/english-200/literary-theory/biographical-criticism

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biographical_criticism

Biographical criticism focuses on “the effect and influence of the writer’s life on his or her work”. This assumption is based on the idea that an author’s life is consistently embedded within his or her work, consciously or subconsciously. One cannot fully understand or analyze an author’s work without knowing the events that led them to tell the story in the first place. It is important to note that this lens is meant to enhance the author’s meaning, not overwhelm the analysis with content that is irrelevant.

https://play.kahoot.it/#/?quizId=a6996e2a-d06a-4a62-8787-d46f7588f202

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