Medea in Victorian Women's Poetry

During the mid to late Victorian period, Euripides’ tale of Medea was given new life by the suffragette movement. As Victorians began to question women’s rights and capabilities, Medea’s story resurfaced as a cautionary tale showing the damage that occurs when women repress and shape their identities to fit uncompromising social expectations for their gender. In this thesis, I examine two Victorian women poets who interpreted Medea as a feminist statement: Augusta Webster, whose “Medea in Athens” (1870) was featured as the lead dramatic monologue in her collection Portraits, and Amy Levy whose closet drama “Medea: A Dramatic Fragment” (1881) was published as a part of her collection A Minor Poet and Other Verse. Both these writers examine Medea’s psychology and the context in which she lives. Through their use of poetic conventions, Webster and Levy are able to suggest ways in which Medea’s autonomy and identity are co-opted by a patriarchal society. I argue that Webster uses the tactics of the dramatic monologue to explore Medea’s disintegrated sense of self, depicting her as a woman whose identity has been usurped by her husband’s view of her. Levy appropriates the techniques of closet drama to focus on the voice of a patriarchal culture that excludes Medea long before her act of filicide. Through close readings of these two poems, I show the cultural impact and relevancy of Webster and Levy as female voices in the Victorian literary tradition.

Name thesis:degree_name

Bachelor of Arts

Level thesis:degree_level

bachelors

Discipline thesis:degree_discipline

English

Grantor dc:publisher

University of Toledo Honors Theses

Year dc:date

2012

Author dc:creator

• Rodriguez, Mia U.

Contributors dc:contributor

• Gregory, Melissa Valiska
• Wikander, Matthew
• Fitzgerald, Christina

• Comparative Literature
• Gender
• Womens Studies
• Medea
• Euripides
• Augusta Webster
• Amy Levy
• Victorian
• Women's Poetry
• Suffragette
• A Minor Poet and Other Verse
• Portraits
• Patriarchal Society
• Victorian Literature
• Hellenism
• Greek Myth
• Interpretation
• Closet Drama
• Dramatic Monologue
• Women's Right

Statement dc:rights

• unrestricted
• This thesis or dissertation is protected by copyright: all rights reserved. It may not be copied or redistributed beyond the terms of applicable copyright laws.

Language dc:language

English

Repository record dc:identifier

http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=uthonors1355934808

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:etd.ohiolink.edu:uthonors1355934808