Aristophane's "Lysistrata" & Euripides' "Medea": post-class thoughts

Carle van Loo - Jason and Medea - 1759

Unfortunately, class discussion did not shed much light on my issues with Medea's murder of her children, although, it was pointed out that she is the daughter of a Titan so this may give her some leeway to be as fickle as the gods.

Abilio presented on Medea, and his questions brought out some interesting points.  Where I saw Medea as passionate to the point of being mad, he saw her madness evoke a sense of rationality as she coldly plotted her revenge.  Similarly, where I saw Lysistrata's strength as being rational in a passionate world, other's saw her passion for ending the war fueling her reason.  Nobody was impressed by Jason's attempt at reason.

We spoke at length about the concept of exile in the modern world - how exile today is not limited to geographical areas, but rather, a social shunning and isolation.  Modern Westerners are not often "exiled", but shunned either in extreme religious/cultural arenas (eg JW exile), or due to real or perceived acts, particularly assaults against children.

We also spoke about the ideas of femininity of writing - how Lysistrata may have been delivered if a woman wrote it.  Would there be less focus on lust, and more on love?  Would the comedy be softer?  Would the frustrations of living as a woman and watching your fathers, husbands, brothers and sons leave to die at war be emphasised?  We agreed that all of these things may have taken place, and a few of us believed that the play would be delivered in a totally different linguistic tone.

With this in mind, we also noted that while Medea is passionate and her jealous flaws could be seen as feminine flaws (although we will see similar, if less violent jealousies in Thesius's jealous disinheriting of Hippolytus next week while reading Phedre), Lysistrata is presented in somewhat masculine terms.  Her rational approach, her military-like sentry pose where she kept her "troops" in line, and her handling of the counsellors and management of the "public funds" present her as a leader, a warrior and a citizen (all male roles in Ancient Greece).  In contrast, the men in the tale are portrayed as weak, but not at all feminine.  This is an interesting choice, especially as the language of the play is steeped in puns and visual humour involving props... the playwright must have gone out of his way to avoid any Freudian allusions when it came to warriors and their swords.