Includes bibliographical references and index.

Front Matter -- Copyright page -- Abbreviations -- Contributors -- Introduction -- Main Sources -- Euripides’ Medea in Context / Patrick J. Finglass -- Medea: the Bewitched Witch in Apollonius of Rhodes / Maria do Céu Fialho -- Versions of Medea in Classical Latin / Andrés Pociña and Aurora López -- Os encantos de Medeia by António José da Silva: Comedy Version of a Tragic Theme (18th Century) / Maria de Fátima Silva -- In Search of Lost Identity: Jean Anouilh’s Medea / Maria de Fátima Silva -- The Reception of Medea in the 20th and 21st Centuries / Rosanna Lauriola -- Portuguese Versions of Medea in the 20th and 21st Centuries -- Medea as an Aesthetic and Ethical Space in Fiama’s Work / Ália Rodrigues -- A Portuguese Medea: Eduarda Dionísio, Antes que a noite venha (Before the Night Comes) / Maria de Fátima Silva -- Hélia Correia’s A de Cólquida (The Woman from Colchis) / Maria António Hörster and Maria de Fátima Silva -- Language, Barbarism, and Civilization: Hélia Correia’s Desmesura (Excess) / Maria de Fátima Silva -- Measure in Hélia Correia’s Desmesura: an Exercise in Recreating Classical Rhythm / Carlos Morais -- Medea in the Society of Entertainment: a Reading of Mário Cláudio’s Medeia / Maria António Hörster and Maria de Fátima Silva -- Revisiting Medea - Carlos Jorge Pessoa’s Escrita da água: no rasto de Medeia (Water Writing: In Medea’s Wake) / Susana Hora Marques -- The Art of Translating a Classic: Author’s and Translator’s Marks / Maria de Fátima Silva -- Conclusion -- A Chronology of Recreations, Editions, and Performances -- Back Matter -- Bibliography.

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The theme of Medea in Portuguese literature has mainly given rise to the writing of new plays on the subject. The central episode in the Portuguese rewritings in the last two centuries is the one that takes place in Corinth, id est, the break between Medea and Jason, on the one hand, and Medea’s killing of their children in retaliation, on the other. Besides the complex play of feelings that provides this episode with very real human emotions, gender was a key issue in determining the interest that this story elicited in a society in search of social renovation, after profound political transformations - during the transition between dictatorship and democracy which happened in 1974 - that generated instability and established a requirement to find alternative rules of social intercourse in the path towards a new Portugal.