Moving Medea. The Transcultural Stage in the Eighteenth Century
In the eighteenth century, Medea entered the stage throughout Europe. She was the protagonist of French opera, German melodrama, and British tragedy. In Stockholm, a libretto by Bengt Lidner with the title Medea was printed in 1784. However, the question of how a British Medea is related to a German or French Medea has not yet been answered. Why is she insane in England, while invoking fear and compassion in France? Why is she sentimental in Germany and a good mother in Sweden?
The 18th-century Medea has been the focus for scholars from various disciplines and nationalities. Several studies focus exclusively on a single nation or language area. On the other hand, many studies completely neglect the borders Medea has crossed since Antiquity. The purpose of this study is to analyse European Medea-texts from a transcultural perspective. First of all, the exclusively national point of departure is questioned. It is replaced by an awareness of the specific local conditions of Paris or London as well as of the fact that texts are engaged in a transfer across language borders, nation borders and cultural borders. Second, the study questions the view that the Classical tradition does not concern spatiality. It promotes a notion of Classicism as productive, local, and unpredictable. The analysis of the 18th-century European Medea contributes to a fundamentally local as well as transcultural literary history.
Anna Cullhed
“Moving Medea: The Transcultural Stage in the Eighteenth Century”
Purpose and development
The purpose of the project is to address the transformation of the Medea figure in European drama during the second half of the 18th century, with the help of spatial theory and gender theory. The project’s point of departure is the feminist critique of Habermas’ theory of private and public spheres during the 18th century. The research questions concern the striking differences between Medea from specific local spaces, the choice of genre, and the media conditions connected to the current aesthetic discourse. Medea, an extreme character from Greek mythology, functions as a prism, refracting crucial issues – motherhood, humanity, the barbarian, sexuality, masculinity, femininity – represented with help of various media and reaching a growing audience.
The project has developed in several ways. For example, I have focused more strongly on sexuality, and on historical change in representations of Medea during the period 1750-1800.
Implementation
The implementation includes the search for research literature and sources, reading, writing, conferences in Sweden and abroad, and lectures. I arranged an international symposium in Stockholm and Uppsala in 2018, and I have held 13 oral presentations during the project period. The project spans several academic disciplines, and the academic contexts of my papers have ranged from literary studies to history of ideas, aesthetics, and interdisciplinary 18th-century studies. Public lectures have reached out both to a younger audience (students and a general public) and to senior members of the public (Senioruniversitetet). As a final step, I organize a panel at the international 18th-century congress in Edinburgh (ISECS) in July 2019. During the project period, I have spent shorter research periods in Oxford and Wolfenbüttel, using the excellent libraries and networking. In 2017, I earned a new position at Stockholm University and the new research environment in Stockholm has been a great advantage. However, new duties have to some extent delayed the work on the project.
I have not published as many articles as planned. For example, one of the conference publications chose a narrow focus, and one article was turned down by the journal. One conference publication with Brill (see the publication list) has been delayed. At the moment I focus on two books – the anthology resulting from the symposium in 2018, and my own monograph. In September 2019, I will send a proposal to Oxford University Press, the series Classical Presences, together with my co-editor Fiona Macintosh at the Archive of Performances of Greek and Roman Drama, Professor of Classics at Oxford. If the proposal is accepted, we count on a publication in autumn 2020. A proposal for my monograph will be sent to Oxford Unversity Studies in the Enlightenment. Since the books have not yet been published, I have not been able to use the open access grant.
The project’s three most important results
1. The Barbarian
In my paper “Inverting the Barbarian. Estrangement and Excess in the Eighteenth-Century Medea” I carry out a conceptual analysis of the barbarian. While Euripides defined Medea as a barbarian, that is a non-Greek, and, as Edith Hall points out, a character defined by excess, it is noteworthy that Jason turned into at barbarian in several of the sources. I argue that that the concept was primarily an ethic category, not an ethnic or spatial designation. Based on literature and dictionaries, my analysis shows that the definition of the barbarian as a heartless and cruel person, irrespective of geographical extraction, was the common understanding during the late 18th century in several language areas of Europe. By using databases and combining a conceptual and a comparative method, I also show that the concept changed radically in the last decade of the century, and that the spatial dimension suddenly turned up as a decisive trait of the barbarian. My results contribute to the current research, not least to the project ”Barbarian: Explorations of a Western Concept in Theory, Literature, and the Arts” (Markus Winkler et al.), with a first volume published in 2018. However, the analysis of the 18th century in the above-mentioned volume is based on German literary texts, while my study includes Swedish, German, French, and English sources.
2. A turning point in gender history
I chose a condensed time frame for the project, 1750-1800, based on the premise that previous research had spanned several centuries, or included several art forms. However, the definition of Medea as a woman changed substantially during the period: Medea retained aspects of Seneca’s witch in early works (Noverre), she transformed into a pitiable mother and an abandoned spouse in the 1770s and 1780s (Gotter, Clément, Lidner), and finally emerged as a deviation, doomed to destruction (Hoffmann, Klinger). Creusa, Medea’s younger rival and Jason’s new love interest, appeared on stage and page as an ideal girlish woman. The Medea story offered 18th-century authors a possibility to stage a variety of femininities. However, one of the paradoxes of the time is that while the star actress turned into an important feminine subject within the public sphere, the character Medea’s fate became rather bleak. The character succumbed, her triumph was called off, and her femininity was considered an anomaly within the public sphere. Medea constituted a centre for the 18th-century debate about women, as mothers and spouses, and as subjects in relation to the public and the private spheres.
3. Medea as text in the bourgeois public sphere
Earlier research seldom addresses the question of media when studying Medea. Several of the source texts – both opera libretti and tragedies – were, in fact, never staged. Even the performed works were printed in several versions, at times based on prompt-books, at times revised for publication in an author’s collected works. Medea, apart from being a great role for any star actress, functioned as a catalyst for printed texts to an increasing degree, favoured by the print revolution. In the many texts of the period, Medea becomes a centre piece for a theoretical reflection about how to represent emotions in different genres and media. This media-historical analysis of Medea as text is based on comparisons between language areas and on translations across languages. Consequently, I suggest that Medea drama and the surrounding Medea texts are vital parts of the bourgeois public sphere.
New research questions
Thanks to the international network established during the project period, I have met Medea drama from a number of language areas. Russian, Spanish, Portuguese, and Italian Medeas suggest new research questions, note least about the colonial aspects of the character.
The project’s international dimensions
I have spent several shorter research periods in Oxford and Wolfenbüttel, in order to use the libraries and to extend my international networks. Both the APGRD, the Bodleian library in Oxford, and the Herzog August Bibliothek in Wolfenbüttel have offered me access to sources and to current research hard to come by in Sweden. Professor Fiona Macintosh and Professor Edith Hall, founders of the APGRD, have been very helpful, and Professor Macintosh is the co-editor of the planned anthology. The interdisciplinary research environment in Wolfenbüttel also proved very rewarding. The symposium in 2018 led to new research contacts in a variety of disciplines. I met with researchers from Russia, Great Britain, France, and Germany, and we are working together on the anthology. I have also presented my research at international conferences in Rotterdam, Amsterdam, Oslo, Edinburgh, Stockholm, and Uppsala.
Dissemination of the results
The preliminary results have been disseminated nationally and internationally through lectures, conference papers, and articles. The two books to be published will disseminate the results of the project within a global research community based on the English language. I have communicated my research to a broader audience, young people with an interest in literature and senior members of the public (Senioruniversitetet). At the symposium in Stockholm in 2018 I worked with Stockholm Student Singers, who performed unpublished Medea songs by the Swedish 19th-century composer Eric Jacob Arrhén von Kapfelman. This event was open to the public.