To read a book or watch a play is to transport oneself to another place and time. However, it is not only the consumers of literature that travel; texts themselves can also make journeys. As is the case for Elin Améen’s play En moder, which has undergone a particular geographic and transformative journey, being based on the play Alan’s wife, an English reworking of Ameen’s Swedish novel ”Befriad”. Thus, the original text left its Swedish context and returned, via England, in a new form. The three works all share the same narrative: a young woman losing her husband in a workplace accident and then giving birth to their disabled child that she later kills. This study provides historical context to these three texts and compares them with a focus on the question of motherhood. By looking at motherhood in Swedish 19th-century drama, the study unveils the social conditions placed upon the protagonist and thus her actions, which in turn captures how motherhood at the time was constructed and reflected as a subject in the arts. As to do this, the study first compares the three texts to illuminate the distinct choices the Swedish and English authors made in their versions. Following this, the debate that took place in England following the premiere of Alan’s Wife is analyzed. Finally, the endings of the three texts are compared, as this is where they differ at its most. The analysis highlights differences between the texts, which are related to their socio-geographic contexts. Religion and punishment, in particular the death penalty, are given greater prominence in the English version, whilst in the Swedish novel and play, Améen, who authors both, sticks to her own beliefs and moral guidelines.

Nos últimos anos do século XIX, o poeta, dramaturgo e ensaísta belga Maurice Maeterlinck (1862-1949) concretiza as aspirações teatrais do movimento simbolista com um conjunto de oito peças, escritas entre 1889 e 1894, que são testemunho não apenas de sua concepção dramática, mas também da própria evolução do teatro simbolista. Fundamentando-se nas limitações da comunicação verbal e na premissa de um silêncio eloqüente, Maeterlinck desenvolve um projeto de reformulação da linguagem dramática que, recentemente, tem sido apreciado do ponto de vista de sua contribuição para a formação do teatro moderno. Este trabalho tem como objetivo ilustrar o projeto de Maeterlinck por meio de uma apreciação de suas teorias teatrais e de exemplos selecionados de cada uma das oito peças que compõem sua produção simbolista. / At the end of the 19th century, the Belgian poet and playwright Maurice Maeterlinck (1862-1949) fulfills the dramatic aspirations of the Symbolist movement through a collection of eight plays, written between 1889 and 1894, which are witnesses not only to the author\'s theatrical conception, but to the symbolist theater evolution as well. Departing from the very limitations of verbal communication and from the conception of an eloquent silence, Maeterlinck develops a project that contemplates a thorough review of the dramatic dialogue, a project which has recently been associated to the making of modern drama. This study seeks to illustrate Maeterlinck`s dramatic project through an appreciation of his theories and examples from the plays which represent his Symbolist drama.

Nos últimos anos do século XIX, o poeta, dramaturgo e ensaísta belga Maurice Maeterlinck (1862-1949) concretiza as aspirações teatrais do movimento simbolista com um conjunto de oito peças, escritas entre 1889 e 1894, que são testemunho não apenas de sua concepção dramática, mas também da própria evolução do teatro simbolista. Fundamentando-se nas limitações da comunicação verbal e na premissa de um silêncio eloqüente, Maeterlinck desenvolve um projeto de reformulação da linguagem dramática que, recentemente, tem sido apreciado do ponto de vista de sua contribuição para a formação do teatro moderno. Este trabalho tem como objetivo ilustrar o projeto de Maeterlinck por meio de uma apreciação de suas teorias teatrais e de exemplos selecionados de cada uma das oito peças que compõem sua produção simbolista. / At the end of the 19th century, the Belgian poet and playwright Maurice Maeterlinck (1862-1949) fulfills the dramatic aspirations of the Symbolist movement through a collection of eight plays, written between 1889 and 1894, which are witnesses not only to the author\'s theatrical conception, but to the symbolist theater evolution as well. Departing from the very limitations of verbal communication and from the conception of an eloquent silence, Maeterlinck develops a project that contemplates a thorough review of the dramatic dialogue, a project which has recently been associated to the making of modern drama. This study seeks to illustrate Maeterlinck`s dramatic project through an appreciation of his theories and examples from the plays which represent his Symbolist drama.