Elucidatio as Performative Process: the Example of Medea

Abstract

Elucidation is a process that depends on the elucidator; studies, personal background and
the literary conventions one employs, shaped by the specific time and space of analysis. This
process oscillates between subjective interpretation and the adherence to objective scholarly
principles. The present paper aims to explore elucidation through a triple-reading model,
connecting a “surface-reading” to a text’s deeper structure, consisting of many factors resonating
the human nature, to a “middle-reading”, which serves as the intermediate factor of
an elucidation, which in turn achieve a “deep-reading” that expresses the deontology of the
elucidator. This model is based on an analysis process that is considered observer-dependent
and time-sensitive; since any analysis is subjected to some text, the above model is applied to
the final scene of both Euripides’ and Seneca’s Medea.

Key-words: Elucidation, Performance, Medea, Reading layers, Seneca, Euripides.