ABSTRACT
This introduction presents an overview of key concepts discussed in the subsequent chapters of this book. The book focuses on the Medea's cultural construction as a witch. The symbols of a powerful magic of binding and loosing are identified with her aunt Circ in the 1581 French court spectacle the Balet comique de la royne, and those arcane symbols may be observed as well in the magical Medean episode of the rejuvenation of Aeson. It permits to understand its yearnings, and that is the history of Ovid's handsome boy, Narcissus. The book brings out the considerations of group narcissism to bear on Medea's Corneillian power. On the stage of history, however, to use a powerful metaphor and one authorized by a certain Revolutionary consciousness, history itself was indeed magical, and this study concludes with an analysis of the great wit of Diderot, and his three references to Medea's activities with cauldron and spell.
