Medea᾽s Emotional Body – Infanticide in the Drama by Ivana Sajko from the Perspective of Emotionology
Medea᾽s Emotional Body – Infanticide in the Drama by Ivana Sajko from the Perspective of Emotionology

Summary/Abstract: The work is focused on the textual analysis of gender performative identities of the figure of Medea in the contemporary Croatian psychological monodrama Medea (2000) by Ivana Sajko. In accordance with the emotional / affective turn and in scientific research current emotionology literary and cultural theory, the concept of the emotional body will be methodologically investigated on the example of the morally-ethically and emotionally complex case of Medea‘s infanticide / infanticide of her own children in revenge for her adulterous husband. The emotional body (identity) will be explored in the dramatic text using postmodernist metatheatrical strategies. The methodological matrix of the work will be two recent theories of the emotional body: Martín-Moruno and Pichel (2019) and Alfirević-Franić (2022). According to Martín-Moruno and Pichel, the emotional body will be investigated as a result of the configuration of matter in which emotions are the driving force and the result of performativity, and according to the theory of Alfirević-Franić, the emotional body will be investigated as an epistemic index and as a discursive anti-essentialist construct that is the basic feature of the expression of emotionality. Medea‘s emotional body will be classified as painful, hysterical and political, one that functions as a discursive example of transgression of gender identity with the aim of resisting traditional patriarchal practices.

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