Medea Rejuvenates Herself: Female Roles and the Use of the Body in Seneca’s Medea

The aim of this paper is to illustrate the arc of the sequence of events through which Medea rejuvenates herself – as she has rejuvenated others before her, she does it as if she were simply disassembling herself and putting herself in her own cauldron to be reborn as her younger and stronger self....

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Main Author: Ildikó Csepregi
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: University of Ljubljana Press (Založba Univerze v Ljubljani) 2023-12-01
Series:Clotho
Subjects:
Online Access:https://journals.uni-lj.si/clotho/article/view/17167
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author Ildikó Csepregi
author_facet Ildikó Csepregi
author_sort Ildikó Csepregi
collection DOAJ
description The aim of this paper is to illustrate the arc of the sequence of events through which Medea rejuvenates herself – as she has rejuvenated others before her, she does it as if she were simply disassembling herself and putting herself in her own cauldron to be reborn as her younger and stronger self. After describing the different and changing female roles of Seneca’s Medea, the paper gives a close reading of the text to show how Seneca uses images of the body and to underscore the way Medea uses her own body to achieve her transformation: to start a new life by returning to her earlier self, i.e., by rejuvenating herself. To back this argument, the paper also highlights her previous acts of rejuvenation in textual and pictorial testimonies and argues that Seneca presented Medea as a rather positive figure, a deity, a magician, a healer, who is capable of ruling over life and death.
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institution Kabale University
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language English
publishDate 2023-12-01
publisher University of Ljubljana Press (Založba Univerze v Ljubljani)
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spelling doaj-art-8bb82cdc54674f3ca59ca24b558259422025-01-07T09:05:54ZengUniversity of Ljubljana Press (Založba Univerze v Ljubljani)Clotho2670-62102670-62292023-12-015210.4312/clotho.5.2.5-31Medea Rejuvenates Herself: Female Roles and the Use of the Body in Seneca’s MedeaIldikó Csepregi0University of Vigo, Ourense, Spain The aim of this paper is to illustrate the arc of the sequence of events through which Medea rejuvenates herself – as she has rejuvenated others before her, she does it as if she were simply disassembling herself and putting herself in her own cauldron to be reborn as her younger and stronger self. After describing the different and changing female roles of Seneca’s Medea, the paper gives a close reading of the text to show how Seneca uses images of the body and to underscore the way Medea uses her own body to achieve her transformation: to start a new life by returning to her earlier self, i.e., by rejuvenating herself. To back this argument, the paper also highlights her previous acts of rejuvenation in textual and pictorial testimonies and argues that Seneca presented Medea as a rather positive figure, a deity, a magician, a healer, who is capable of ruling over life and death. https://journals.uni-lj.si/clotho/article/view/17167Seneca the YoungerMedearejuvenationfemale rolesbodystages of life
spellingShingle Ildikó Csepregi
Medea Rejuvenates Herself: Female Roles and the Use of the Body in Seneca’s Medea
Clotho
Seneca the Younger
Medea
rejuvenation
female roles
body
stages of life
title Medea Rejuvenates Herself: Female Roles and the Use of the Body in Seneca’s Medea
title_full Medea Rejuvenates Herself: Female Roles and the Use of the Body in Seneca’s Medea
title_fullStr Medea Rejuvenates Herself: Female Roles and the Use of the Body in Seneca’s Medea
title_full_unstemmed Medea Rejuvenates Herself: Female Roles and the Use of the Body in Seneca’s Medea
title_short Medea Rejuvenates Herself: Female Roles and the Use of the Body in Seneca’s Medea
title_sort medea rejuvenates herself female roles and the use of the body in seneca s medea
topic Seneca the Younger
Medea
rejuvenation
female roles
body
stages of life
url https://journals.uni-lj.si/clotho/article/view/17167
work_keys_str_mv AT ildikocsepregi medearejuvenatesherselffemalerolesandtheuseofthebodyinsenecasmedea