Emotions in Antiquity : Blessing or Curse?

This volume addresses various aspects of the character of Medea and the presentation of her emotions in literature and in connection with Medea, of philosophical views on emotions and of the reception of these themes in the later European tradition. One of the articles discusses the presentation of Medea's emotions in Hellenistic literature, i.e. in Callimachus and Apollonius Rhodius. Three other papers focus on aspects of philosophy, ranging from Plato to Stoicism. The reception of Euripidean emotionality and the character of Medea in the later European tradition is the subject of two other articles, which focus on the Renaissance poet Maffeo Vegio and on the way in which Goethe models his Iphigeneia on the character of Medea.