Sarah Cullinan Herring, University of Oxford
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.