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RECOGNITION AND THE CHARACTER OF SENECA'S MEDEA

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  08 August 2016

Erica Bexley
Erica Bexley*
Affiliation:
Swansea University, UK
*
*E.M.Bexley@swansea.ac.uk
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Abstract

This article examines the character and identity of Seneca's Medea. Focusing on the recognition scene at the end of the play, I investigate how Medea constructs herself both as a literary figure and as an implied human personality. The concluding scene of Seneca's Medea raises crucial questions about self-coherence and recognisability: in contrast to other moments of anagnōrisis in Greco-Roman drama, it confirms the pre-existing facets of Medea's identity, rather than revealing new ones. This concept of recognition as self-confirmation is also integral to Seneca's Stoic view of human selfhood, and Medea's use of Stoic principles in this play reinforces her dual status as textual entity and quasi-person.

Type
Research Article
Information
The Cambridge Classical Journal , Volume 62 , December 2016 , pp. 31 - 51
Copyright
Copyright © The Author(s) 2016. Published by Cambridge University Press 

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