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Medea is a figure in Greek mythology and the main character in Euripides’s Medea. Medea murders her own children in revenge after her husband, Jason, runs off with a princess. Aristotle uses Medea and the murder of her children as an example of a “terrible and pitiable act” that produces pity and fear in the audience. Aristotle also refers to Medea as relying on “theatrical device,” as Medea escapes by way of a supernatural chariot after she murders her children, which Aristotle considers less artistic than a resolution that arises from plot.
Medea Quotes in Poetics
The Poetics quotes below are all either spoken by Medea or refer to Medea . For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
).
Chapter 8
Quotes
(Clearly, therefore, the resolutions of plots should also come about from the plot itself, and not by means of a theatrical device, as in the Medea, or the events concerned with the launching of the ships in the Iliad. A theatrical device may be used for things outside the play—whether prior events which are beyond human knowledge, or subsequent events which need prediction and narration since we grant that the gods can see everything. But there should be nothing irrational in the events themselves; or, failing that, it should be outside the play, as for example in Sophocles’s Oedipus.)
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Get the entire Poetics LitChart as a printable PDF.
Medea Quotes in Poetics
The Poetics quotes below are all either spoken by Medea or refer to Medea . For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
).
Chapter 8
Quotes
(Clearly, therefore, the resolutions of plots should also come about from the plot itself, and not by means of a theatrical device, as in the Medea, or the events concerned with the launching of the ships in the Iliad. A theatrical device may be used for things outside the play—whether prior events which are beyond human knowledge, or subsequent events which need prediction and narration since we grant that the gods can see everything. But there should be nothing irrational in the events themselves; or, failing that, it should be outside the play, as for example in Sophocles’s Oedipus.)
Related Characters:
Related Symbols:
Related Themes:
Page Number and Citation:
Explanation and Analysis:
