The body of others. Femalecorporality in Euripides

Abstract

This essay will focus on the images of the female body that appear in two texts by Euripides: Medea and Bacchae. It aims to visualize and explain how the relationship between woman and body is articulated in Euripides’ tragic discourse. It is interesting to highlight that, within the logic of the Greek imaginary, the female body is a privileged space for the inscription of social representations and practices; that is, the female body is a symbolic and representational space where dominant cultural patterns appear and are performed (Citro 2010). Medea will be considered a representation of Feminine Emotionality; the Bacchae will be considered as representations of Woman and her relationship with the Divine, and in particular with Dionysian religiosity, which possesses many elements associated with corporality and the feminine.