Myth Of Medea Research Articles

Ovid's Medea and the Magic of Language

In the Metamorphoses, Ovid suppresses certain elements of the myth of Medea and supplements others. The focus of his alterations, it seems, is on language itself, and particularly on the relation of language to metamorphosis. He returns again and again to Medea's use of incantation. Whether in the story of Jason and the golden fleece or of Aeson's rejuvenation, Ovid emphasizes the efficacy of language. He suggests the relationship of words to transformation through Medea's exercise of magic, indeed literalizes the connection between ritual language and transformed phenomena in the metamorphoses that follow her magic rites. But magic functions also as a metaphor for imaginative power, since it possesses the capacity shared by poet and magician to transform. In the several depictions of Medea's magic art — and one can perceive the episodes of the myth structured around their connections with magic — Ovid develops an image for imagination itself. Jason's labors, for example, are affected by Medea's expertise in magic; they are also a vehicle for a self-conscious display of poetic power. Ovid asserts his imaginative superiority more clearly in the case of Medea, whose relation even to her own power is ambiguous. But let us first consider the portrayal of Medea as a teller of her own tale and the poet's nod in the direction of his predecessors.

Chaucer's Man of Law as a Literary Critic

If Chaucer describes Man of Law seeming wiser and busier than he really is, then we also question whether his knowledge of literature is great he claims. The Man of Law is self-appointed literary critic and his tendency to error is shown by his mention of seven or eight women about whom Chaucer did write and by omission of two that he did write. Either Man of Law likes to exaggerate, or he has read only Prologue to LGW and believes to have been written (5). Similarly, Man of Law's reference to cruelty of Medea and hanging of her children shows that he is not actually familiar with Medea myth at all (6). As for disparaging remarks about Gower, Sullivan suggests that a hypothetical parallel would be if Charles Dickens referred to Jane Austen's novels being vulgar content (6). In addition, Man of Law's inclusion of extra names might be considered result of his confusing two works [the CA and LGW] similar subject matter (6-7). The remarks about incest relation to of Canace and Apollonius show the extremely broad comical effect of Chaucer's selfish humor putting into mouth of Man of Law a speech condemning Gower's choice of material, and, after a blunt relation of most obnoxious facts (which Gower had carefully avoided), an announcement that he is going to tell such stories (7). The humor lies in fact that expansive Man of Law is making a blunder accusing Chaucer's 'moral Gower' of immorality (7). Nevertheless, Chaucer's removal of complimentary reference to Chaucer from later recensions of CA may indicate that he found Chaucer's humor as being bad taste (8). [CvD]

Contemporary Advances in Physics-XIII.

Magnetism was revealed to Europeans by pieces of a mineral later to be called lodestone, which lay scattered in the fields of Magnesia in Asia Minor, and were endowed with the curious power of attracting iron. They who first noticed it were apparently Greeks of the period before the practice of writing; for legends of the discovery were transmitted by the Greeks of later centuries, legends entangled with tales of Cretan shepherds and the myth of Medea. Electricity was disclosed, evidently in the same dim period and region, by fragments of amber on which friction conferred the remarkable power of attracting shreds and flakes of light materials.