Zena Dhia Al-Munshi
University of Karbala, Iraq
Myths play an important role in literature. Myths are stories of gods, monsters or immortals which are transformed from one generation to the other. Myths do not only bear cultural and religious experiences of a particular community, but they also outline the consequent literary, artistic and dramatic customs. Some Greek myths have survived for thousands of years because they reflect the true cultural values, historical happenings and trends. Among the most famous classical myths are the myths of Medusa and Medea. As for the myth of Medusa, the earliest known record was found in Theogony (700BC) by Hesiod (8 th-7th century BC.). A later version of the Medusa myth was made by the Roman poet Ovid (43BC –17/18AD), in his Metamorphoses (3-8 AD). Medusa is a beautiful mortal maiden, one of the three Gorgons, daughters of the sea gods. But she was transformed by the God, Athena, into a winged monster with living snakes on her head. She had the power of turning into stone those who gazed upon her eyes. Then again, Medea is a tragedy produced in 431BC by the Greek playwright Euripides (480 – 406 BC) based on the myth of Jason and Medea. Medea is the archetypal sorceress-figure who murders her children, her brother and betrays her father in order to take revenge on her husband because of his betrayal and marriage to another woman. Both Medusa and Medea are among the most fascinating and complex female characters in Greek mythology. Moreover, their complicated and multiple characters have captivated writers and play wrights for ages. In the twentieth century, there were many adaptations of both mythological figures; among these adaptations were those made by contemporary American and Irish women playwrights like Carol Lashof (1956- ) and Marinna Carr (1964- ). This paper examines the myths of Medusa and Medea and analyses the ways these myths are borrowed, refashioned and exploited in Lashof’s Medusa’s Tale (1991) and Carr’s By the Bog of Cats (1998). Both playwrights explore hidden dimensions of the traditional myths, combining elements from the old and modern worlds and provide modes of transformation and evolutionary development within their characters.
The above abstract is a part of the article which was accepted at The Fourth Annual International Conference on Languages, Linguistics, Translation and Literature (WWW.TLLL.IR), 1-2 February 2020, Ahwaz.
