Euripides' Medea, produced in the year that the Peloponnesian War began, presents the first in a parade of vivid female tragic protagonists across the Euripidean stage. Throughout the centuries it has been regarded as one of the most powerful of the Greek tragedies.

McDermott's starting point is an assessment of the character of Medea herself. She confronts the question: What does an audience do with a tragic protagonist who is at once heroic, sympathetic, and morally repugnant? We see that the play portrays a world from which all order has been deliberately and pointedly...