Volume 19, 2007 - Brown University

30 Hillary Dixler
Through the structural, thematic, and performative condition of rhetoric and
words in Medea, Euripides articulates the same fluency and distrust, dependence
and aversion to rhetoric, oratory, and words that Plato and Thucydides expose in
their own works. When examined within that sort of contextual framework,
Medea can be seen to embody the cultural milieu as it is echoed in these other
remnants of contemporaneous Greek culture. In so doing, Medea not only tells
one woman’s story to the Greeks, but their own story as well.
References
Arnott, Peter D. 1991. Public and Performance in Greek Theater. London: Routledge.
Arrowsmith, William. 1959.“The Criticism of Greek tragedy.” Tulane Drama Review,
III, 3: 31-57.
Buxton, R.G.A. 1982. Persuasion in Greek Tragedy: A Study of Peitho. Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press.
Euben,, J. Peter. 1990. The Tragedy of Political Theory: The Road Not Taken. Princeton:
Princeton University Press.
Euripides. Medea. 2004. Trans. Rex Warner in The Wadsworth Anthology of Drama, ed.
W.B. Worthen, pp. 66-78. Boston, MA: Wadsworth.
Geertz, Clifford. 1973. The Interpretation of Cultures. New York, NY: Basic Books.
Plato. 1989. The Collected Dialogues of Plato. eds. Edith Hamilton and Huntington
Cairns. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
Thucydides. 1972. History of the Peloponnesian War. Trans. Rex Warner. London: Penguin
Books.
Wiles, David. 2000. Greek Theatre Performance: An Introduction. Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press.
Worthington, Ian, ed. 1994. Persuasion: Greek Rhetoric in Action. London: Routledge