From the Medea of Euripides and Seneca to the Medea of Dario Fo and Franca Rame
This essay includes a comparative examination of Dario Fo's Medea monologue and Franca Rame and the eponymous tragedy of Euripides and Seneca. The Italian Medea basically imitates the Euripides tragedy, at the same time giving its own stigma to the female personality. In fact, given the inability of the authors to make known the origin of their text, we could risk the assessment that this Medea is a composition of DF and FR inspired by the personality of Euripides.
The Italian Medea, like the Medea of Euripides, despises the abandonment, which he accepted from Jason, and is possessed by vengeful rage, but he always remains a woman. He sways and suffers mentally to reach the murder, and this murder does not become coram populo.
The Italian Medea does not have the coldness and cynicism of the respective heroine of Seneca and the European writers who followed her, nor is she guided by the sexual instinct and the beauty of magic like her. On the contrary, she is a deeply aware woman, who fights against male oppression, with the aim of securing her rights.
She fights for her personality per se and not combined with having children. She remains a woman with a vengeance for betrayal but also with self-knowledge, self-awareness and militancy for the recognition and promotion of her gender. The motives for killing are not the drama of jealousy and anger, but of self-awareness.
Reading and comparing the Medea of different writers and eras, we could conclude that: as long as the conditions turn marriage into slavery and daily hell for the woman, the Medea will lurk and the tragic heroine of Euripides will remain forever. and a timeless model for world literature.
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