Tragic Medea

‘Women’s Weapons’: Education and Female Revenge on the Early Modern Stage

“…8 Various authors cited the female revengers of ancient Greek and Roman tragedy to condemn women who resisted contemporary expectations: punitive depictions of a weakened Medea were used 'to caution or instruct the reader or audience member', while Thomas Nashe's Pierce Penilesse and Christopher Fetherstone's A dialogue agaynst light, lewde, and lasciuious dauncing associate promiscuity with the murderous 'strumpet' Clytemnestra. 9 Those arguing in defence of women were equally aware of such classical precedents. Thus "Ester Sowernam", responding to Joseph Swetnam's 1615 Arraignment of Lewd, Idle, Froward, and Unconstant Women, mockingly suggests that Swetnam should have quoted Euripides to strengthen his argument, since women are vilified in his drama as being without value and 'most hurtfull to men'; she names 'the Gracians, Euripides, Menander, Simonides, Sophocles, with the like, amongst Latine writers Invenall, Plautus, &c' as 'vehement and profest enemies against our sexe'.…”