The Medea Howells Saw

Abstract

THE CONNECTION between A Modern Instance and Medea has long been an accepted fact. Regarding the genesis of the novel, we are told by William M. Gibson when Howells witnessed Francesca Janauschek's fiery re-creation on the stage of Medea's love for the self-centered Jason as it turned into hatred and engendered terrible acts of revenge, he said to himself, as he told an interviewer many years later, 'This is an Indiana divorce case . . . and the novel born.' 1 We know, furthermore, Howells first referred to the novel as that New Medea.2 The issue at hand is the authorship of the Medea Howells saw. Critics who refer to Medea in connection with A Modern Instance invariably assume the play Euripides' classical drama.3 But the Medea in which Francesca Janauschek starred throughout her career not the classical Greek tragedy; rather she starred in a romantic German melodrama-part of a trilogy entitled The Golden Fleece-written by the Austrian playwright Franz Grillparzer and first staged in Vienna in I822. In his study of Franz Grillparzer in England and America, Arthur Burkhard writes Grillparzer's Medea was most frequently presented by Mlle. Fanny Janauschek i almost all the major American cities after her debut in this role at the Academy of Music in New York, 9 October I867.' Writing further about Mlle Janauschek, Burkhard states she distinguished as an actress, colorful as a character, and foremost in most frequently presenting Grillparzer's Medea in America.' Thus the Medea Howells saw Mlle Janauschek perform in Boston in I875 Franz Grillparzer's. And an examination of Grillparzer's