The Figure of Medea in Medieval Literature: A Thematic Metamorphosis

The figure of Medea has undergone many thematic transformations since its first appearance in the epic poems and dramas of ancient Greece. In Hesiod, Medea is a type of fairytale princess. In Euripides, she is a vengeful woman whose wrath inspires the greatest of enormities, the slaughter of her own children. Apollonius portrays a young Medea struggling valiantly, but fruitlessly against a divinely inspired passion. The Latin poets and philosophers depict Medea as titanic, frightening, often a criminal. In Ovid's Metamorphoses, Medea degenerates into a blind destructive force. In the twelfth century Roman de Troie, Medea undergoes a remarkable transformation when she is placed in the context of fin' amor. Here she is a positive, life-sustaining figure motivated to perform helpful deeds by her noble passion. In medieval literature, the fortunes of the figure of Medea follow the writers' attitude toward secular love. When the medieval poet approves of fin' amor, Medea is portrayed positively. However, when secular passion is denigrated in favor of divine love, Medea is characterized as a type of wilfull, destructive woman, at the mercy of her unrestrained lust. In the French prose versions of the Roman de Troie, Guido delle Colonne's Historia Destructionis Troiae, and Boccaccio's De Mulieribus Claris, such a negative Medea may be found. However, in Chaucer's Legend of Good Women and Gower's Confessio Amatis, Medea is portrayed as a saint of secular love for her unstinting fidelity to Jason. At the hands of Chaucer and Gover, Medea receives her most radical transformation, sanctification in the context of fin' amor.