Antônio José da Silva, o judeu: um leitor de Eurípides

Abstract

This following paper has as it corpus the work Encantos de Medeia by Antônio José da Silva, the Jew, written in 1739, in the 18th century in Portugal, an age that religious harassment via the Inquisition Tribunals haven‟t spare Jews, intellectuals or artistes who were against the ecclesiastical dogmas. The presented work is a parodical allegory, rescued from the Greek tragedy Medeia, written by Eurípides in 431 b.C. The comedy writerfrom Lisbon, provided with multiples resources, rebuilt the Greek work under the perspective of laugh, puppets and arias that are sung by the character at the end of each scene. Starting with a complete restructureof the original work, adding and suppressing characters, conflicts and lines, the play reorganize both the leading figures acts, Jasão and Medeia. It is noticeable the ambiguous characters that, despite the moral and behavior deviations, manage to receive honors from the royal power instead of a penalty for their crimes. Besides, the participation of the gracious Sacatrapo and Arpia is very frequent; since it occupies great part of the scenes and creates the comic and mocking atmosphere with their parallel lines, due to the fact that those lines denote their masters and their own real intentions.In this way, both works were analyzed, verifying yet how both of them still appealsto critic‟s interest and arise instigating themes as infanticide, magic, values deviations and the obstreperous feeling that leads to a fatal revenge.