02 - Medea's magical music: gendered song and power disruptions in Apollonius’ Argonautica

This paper demonstrates that Apollonius' Medea uses music as a means of usurping the

power of the poet and of achieving heroic deeds in the masculine sphere, usurping

hegemonic male power. There has been analysis of Apollonius' Medea from various angles

including her psychology and her emotions (do Céu Fialho 2018, Klooster 2018, Buxton

2017) but nothing has focussed specifically on the connection between Medea's magic,

music and power in book 4 of the poem. This paper builds on the suggestion of Fantuzzi

(2008) that Medea's magic in book 3, which is pharmacological rather than musical, may

have meta-literary significance. The musical magic in book 4 is shown to have powerful

meta-literary significance as well as offering a political challenge to the power structures of

hegemonic masculinity.

Applying a double lens of narratological and gender theory to close readings of the

Greek text (de Jong 2004, Connell 2005), this paper examines three of Medea's musical

performances, showing how in each case, music is central to the disruption of pre-existing

political and poetic power dynamics. At Argonautica 4.54-65 Apollonius introduces the

virtuosic heroine using the non-literary tradition of Greek magical incantations in his

construction of her musical prowess (Faraone 1999). Medea's magical power is directly

connected to and expressed by musical performance, which can control physical objects and

astronomical phenomena; this creates a gendered, metapoetic tension with the power of

Orpheus, the heroic male bard of the poem, and with the poet of the Argonautica.

At Arg. 4.156-162, Medea's defeat of the serpent is again expressed in this unique

combination of musical and magical terminology; music is the means by which she leaves

Jason behind ‘in fear' and achieves the deed he came to accomplish. Jason's hegemonic

masculinity is no match for the magical power of Medea's song, which easily subdues the

supernatural monster. In the discussion of this passage and one further instance of musical

performance in the Argonautica (4.1654-1672), the lens of narratological theory is used to

argue for ‘narratological contagion', a phenomenon linked to metalepsis (de Jong 2009,

Whitmarsh 2002) whereby the voice of Medea is made to blend with the voice of

Apollonius, creating a narrative disruption as well as a gendered political disruption in the

text.

This paper links Medea's magical music to her refusal to accept being boundaried by

the societal limitations set for her gender and social status, going beyond previous analyses

which seek to cast her, for instance, as a traditional ‘helper-maiden' (Clauss 1997). Medea is

shown to use music as a means of emancipating herself within the poem by achieving deeds

of heroism beyond her physical capability and expressing sexual agency in choosing a

partner; she also uses music to emancipate herself from the poem, breaking out of the

confines usually imposed on characters by the primary narrator and affecting the nature and

quality of the frame narrative with the power of her music.

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Presenters

Sarah Cullinan Herring, University of Oxford

  SCS-73