Abstract
Performances of Latin drama had become a widespread phenomenon in European schools by the middle of the sixteenth century. The potential for these dramas to have a significant impact on the students who performed or watched these plays was recognised at the time. Memories of participating in these performances would linger in the pupils’ minds, as Michel de Montaigne clearly shows in his own reminiscences of his leading roles undertaken at the Collège de Guyenne in Bordeaux. The lessons learnt in performance were thought to be thoroughly complementary to the program of classroom Latin education across Europe. But learning in performance, this article contends, also yielded crucially different lessons as well, not least concerning the manipulation of sentiment through rhetoric and the often violently differing results in action. In this article I examine the 1543 production of George Buchanan's translation of Euripides' Medea from four angles: its `Greekness', the Latinity of the translation, the pedagogical context for the performance, and the medium of performance itself. Using these four angles to create a matrix of meaning, I argue that Latin translations such as Buchanan's warrant greater appreciation than has been awarded them so far, and demonstrate the potential that lies within these understudied texts.
Highlights
A Performances of Latin drama had become a widespread phenomenon in European schools by the middle of the sixteenth century
Multiple editions of Euripides’ Greek play and a few Latin translations of the work were already in existence as Buchanan began work on his version,8 the realisation of Medea as she would appear on the stage of Bordeaux, would have, to this local audience, marked out a distinct and different territory
Analysis of Latin translations of Greek plays such as Buchanan’s Medea, and the study of neo-Latin drama more generally, has tended to focus on the impact the text had on its readers
Summary
A Performances of Latin drama had become a widespread phenomenon in European schools by the middle of the sixteenth century. Analysis of Latin translations of Greek plays such as Buchanan’s Medea, and the study of neo-Latin drama more generally, has tended to focus on the impact the text had on its readers Performances of these texts, create new layers of meaning. Tightly focused on this one play, one translation, one audience, and one performance, the readings I give here might be taken as indicative for at least some of the kinds of readings possible in other Latin translations of Greek tragedies Having seen how these readings contribute to our understanding of the significance of the production, we can turn to the broader question of the place of ancient Greek drama, or literature and culture more generally, within early modern Europe
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