Medusa
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Greek: Μέδουσα (Médousa),protect, rule over".[1]), a sea nymph, was one of three gorgon sisters, and the most beautiful. She was courted by Poseidon, and made love to him in a temple of Athena. Furious, Athena transformed Medusa into a monstrous chthonic beast with snakes instead of hair, whose frightening face could turn onlookers to stone. She was beheaded while sleeping by the hero Perseus, who thereafter used her head as a weapon[2] until giving it to the goddess Athena to place on her shield. Having coupled with Poseidon previously, two beings sprang from her body when she was beheaded. One, Pegasus, was a winged horse later tamed by Bellerophon to help him kill the chimera. The other, Chrysaor of the Golden Sword, remains relatively unknown today. In classical antiquity and today, the image of the head of Medusa finds expression in the evil-averting device known as the Gorgoneion.[3]
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[edit] Modern interpretations
[edit] Psychoanalysis
In 1940, Sigmund Freud's Das Medusenhaupt (Medusa's Head) was published posthumously. This article laid the framework for his significant contribution to a body of criticism surrounding the monster. Medusa is presented as “the supreme talisman who provides the image of castration -- associated in the child's mind with the discovery of maternal sexuality -- and its rejection. The snakes are multiple phalluses and petrifaction represents the comforting erection.”[4][5][6]
[edit] Feminism
In the 20th century, feminists reassessed Medusa's appearances in literature and in modern culture, including the use of Medusa as a logo by fashion company Versace.[7][8][9] The attack on Medusa is discussed as a potential example of violence against women or rape.
The name "Medusa" itself is often used in ways not directly connected to the mythological figure but to suggest the gorgon's abilities or to connote malevolence; despite her origins as a beauty, the name in common usage "came to mean monster."[10] The book Female Rage: Unlocking Its Secrets, Claiming Its Power by Mary Valentis and Anne Devane notes that "When we asked women what female rage looks like to them, it was always Medusa, the snake-haired monster of myth, who came to mind ... In one interview after another we were told that Medusa is 'the most horrific woman in the world' ... [though] none of the women we interviewed could remember the details of the myth."[11]
[edit] Medusa in art
From ancient times, the Medusa was immortalized in numerous works of art, including:
- Medusa on the breastplate of Alexander the Great, as depicted in the Alexander Mosaic from Pompeii's House of the Faun (c. 200 BC)
- Medusa Rondanini, a Roman copy of the Gorgoneion on the aegis of Athena
- Medusa (oil on canvas) by Leonardo da Vinci
- Perseus with the Head of Medusa (bronze sculpture) by Benvenuto Cellini (1554)
- Medusa (oil on canvas) by Caravaggio (1597).
- Tête de Méduse, by Peter Paul Rubens (1618)
- Perseus with the Head of Medusa (marble sculpture) by Antonio Canova (1801)
- Medusa (oil on canvas) by Arnold Böcklin (c. 1878)
- Perseus (bronze sculpture) by Salvador Dalí
Accompanied by a revival of the legend by Thomas Bulfinch's Mythology, "Medusa had become a common theme in art" by the nineteenth century. Edward Burne-Jones' Perseus Cycle of paintings and a drawing by Aubrey Beardsley gave way to the twentieth century works of Paul Klee, John Singer Sargent, Pablo Picasso, and Auguste Rodin's bronze sculpture The Gates of Hell.[12]
[edit] Notes and references
- ^ Compare Medon, Medea, Diomedes. Probably the feminine present participle of medein, "to protect, rule over" (American Heritage Dictionary; compare Medon, Medea, Diomedes, etc.). If not, it is from the same root, and is formed after the participle. OED 2001 revision, s.v.; medein in LSJ.
- ^ Bullfinch, Thomas. Bulfinch Mythology - Age of Fable - Stories of Gods & Heroes. Retrieved on 2007-09-07. “...and turning his face away, he held up the Gorgon’s head. Atlas, with all his bulk, was changed into stone.”
- ^ A classic example of apotropaic magic.
- ^ according to myth if you look into medusa>'s ayes you will turn into stone and it is i reversible History
- ^ Das Medusenhaupt (Medusa's Head. First published posthumously. Int. Z. Psychoanal. Imago, 25 (1940), 105; reprinted Ges. W., 17,47. The manuscript is dated May 14, 1922, and appears to be a sketch for a more extensive work. Translation, reprinted from Int. J. Psychoanal.,22 (1941), 69; by James Strachey.
- ^ Psycho-Anal., 83:895-911.
- ^ Pratt, A. (1994). Archetypal empowerment in poetry: Medusa, Aphrodite, Artemis, and bears : a gender comparison. Bloomington: Indiana University Press. ISBN 0253208653
- ^ Stephenson, A. G. (1997). Endless the Medusa: a feminist reading of Medusan imagery and the myth of the hero in Eudora Welty's novels.
- ^ Garber, Marjorie. The Medusa Reader, 24 February 2003, ISBN 0-415-90099-9.
- ^ The Medusa Reader, Introduction, pg. 1
- ^ Medusa: Solving the Mystery of the Gorgon, pg. 218.
- ^ Wilk, Stephen R. Medusa: Solving the Mystery of the Gorgon, 26 June 2000, pg. 200, ISBN 0-195-12431-6.
[edit] See also
[edit] External links
- Ancient coins depicting Medusa
- "Medusa in Myth and Literary History" - English.uiuc.edu
- On the Medusa of Leonardo Da Vinci in the Florentine Gallery, by Percy Bysshe Shelley
- Theoi Project, Medousa & the Gorgones References to Medusa and her sisters in classical literature and art
- "Medusa as an Archetype"
[edit] References
[edit] Primary sources
- Servius, In Aeneida vi.289
- Lucan, Bellum civile ix.624-684
- Ovid, Metamorphoses iv.774-785, 790-801
[edit] Secondary sources
- Jane Ellen Harrison, (1903) 3rd ed. 1922. Prolegomena to the Study of Greek Religion,: "The Ker as Gorgon"
