D.Litt. et Phil. (Classical Languages) / Please refer to full text to view abstract

M.A. / The goal of this research is to list, explore and explain the similarities and differences between the Electra of Euripides and the film of Michael Cacoyannis. Some critics regard the film as completely unfaithful to the original; others view it as a faithful cinematic rendition of the original; while others still regard it as a reworking of, and an improvement on, Euripides’ version of the Electra myth. The myth as treated by Euripides is about the revenge of the two children of Agamemnon and Clytemnestra. After Agamemnon had returned victorious from the Trojan War, he was murdered by his wife, Clytemnestra, and her lover, Aegisthus. His daughter, Electra, finally takes the initiative when she and her brother, Orestes, avenge their father’s murder by killing their mother and her lover. The method devised to address the research problem is firstly to compare the text of the original tragedy with the screenplay of Cacoyannis. Thereafter, the dramatic structure (plot, time frame, characterization, setting, mood, narrative perspective and theme) of the tragedy and the film are compared. Next, the media of film and theatre are explored and compared. For the stage production of Euripides’ Electra, the aspects of the set, masks, choral movement, mirror scenes, objects and tokens, off-stage violence, actions and gestures, the deus ex machina, and tableaux are examined. Regarding the film, the features of set design, costume design, cinematography, music, acting and directing are surveyed. Finally, the respective socio-historical contexts of the original play and the film, as well as relevant biographical material from both Euripides and Cacoyannis, are investigated. It is concluded that Cacoyannis remained true to the spirit of the original drama of Euripides as well as to the genre of tragedy. However, the way in which he adapted Euripides demonstrates his secularism, his dedication to contemporary issues, like the plight of women, an unequal society, oppressive and authoritarian regimes, and the futility of revenge. In this way he forcefully demonstrated the timeless power and universality of an ancient myth even in the twentieth century.

O presente trabalho tem como objeto de estudo a tragédia Electra de Eurípides no que concerne à atualização que o poeta faz do episódio em sua versão dramática do mito de Orestes. Para tal, divide-se em duas partes, sendo que a primeira compreende o estudo propriamente dito e a segunda traz uma tradução integral do poema dramático seguindo os moldes de uma tradução acadêmica para fins de estudo. O estudo apresenta três capítulos que abordam a questão da atualização sob diferentes perspectivas. O primeiro trata da história do mito desde Homero até sua chegada à poesia dramática e apresenta um estudo comparativo das três versões trágicas que têm o mito por matéria, a saber, a Oresteia de Ésquilo e as Electras de Sófocles e Eurípides. A partir do segundo capítulo, o foco é dado à Electra euripidiana. Parte-se, então, de uma análise pontual de algumas das personagens e do coro com vistas a um estudo dirigido às inovações do enredo. A encenação da tragédia é, por fim, matéria de estudo do terceiro capítulo, ainda sob o ponto de vista da atualização. De uma forma geral, o estudo tem por objetivo uma reflexão sobre os modelos visados por Eurípides, sobre as adaptações que esses sofreram e, finalmente, sobre a recusa de alguns paradigmas. / This thesis focuses on the tragedy Electra by Euripides taking a more specific look at the way the poet updates this episode in his dramatic version of the myth of Orestes. The thesis is divided in two parts. The first contains the study itself and the second offers an integral translation of the dramatic poem according to the standards of academic translations intended for study. The study encompasses three chapters that address the issue of updating from different perspectives. The first concerns the story of the myth from Homer to its appearance in dramatic poetry and presents a comparative study of the three tragic versions of the myth, namely Aeschylus Oresteia and the Electras of Sophocles and Euripides. From the second chapter on, the focus is on Euripides Electra. This chapter resorts to a detailed analysis of some of the characters and the chorus in order to study the innovations in the plot. Finally, the third chapter discusses the staging of the tragedy, once again from the point of view of the updating. Overall, the study intends to reflect on the models used by Euripides, as well as the adaptations that these models have gone through and, finally, the refusal of some paradigms.

The ancient myth of Electra has a rich history of reception through the ages, which is well documented in scholarship. The scholarly debate, however, ceases when it comes to the reception of the myth after 1960, especially after 1970. Very few scholars have critically engaged with the adaptations of the Electra myth in the last three decades. In my thesis I intend to fill in this gap in scholarship by presenting eight adaptations of the Electra myth between 1960 and 2005 covering a span of three continents, three (or four) languages and three media (drama, comic series, film). The common factor between all of these adaptations consists in the fact that they have strong political and societal connotations. I selected them in order to illustrate my underlying argument in this thesis that the Electra myth survives from antiquity until today because it appeals to the creative imagination of authors and playwrights from different historical backgrounds, who use this specific myth as a vehicle in order to engage with their political and societal situation in their respective countries at their respective time. This selection also serves the purpose of illustrating a new trend in the reception of antiquity in modem times, a shift from more traditional high culture adaptations to the more unconventional popular mass media. With my thesis I would like to make a contribution to Reception Studies, a subdiscipline of Classics which has recently emerged from the long-standing field of Classical Tradition, by combing the methodologies of traditional Classical Philology and modern Literary Theory into one single comparative study. It is also an attempt to make some rather lesser known yet not less rewarding plays accessible to a wider audience. I hope that this attempt will prove to be fruitful and that my thesis will be the starting point for further research on more recent adaptations of the Electra myth. / Thesis (Ph.D.)-University of KwaZulu-Natal, 2007.

O presente trabalho tem como objeto de estudo a tragédia Electra de Eurípides no que concerne à atualização que o poeta faz do episódio em sua versão dramática do mito de Orestes. Para tal, divide-se em duas partes, sendo que a primeira compreende o estudo propriamente dito e a segunda traz uma tradução integral do poema dramático seguindo os moldes de uma tradução acadêmica para fins de estudo. O estudo apresenta três capítulos que abordam a questão da atualização sob diferentes perspectivas. O primeiro trata da história do mito desde Homero até sua chegada à poesia dramática e apresenta um estudo comparativo das três versões trágicas que têm o mito por matéria, a saber, a Oresteia de Ésquilo e as Electras de Sófocles e Eurípides. A partir do segundo capítulo, o foco é dado à Electra euripidiana. Parte-se, então, de uma análise pontual de algumas das personagens e do coro com vistas a um estudo dirigido às inovações do enredo. A encenação da tragédia é, por fim, matéria de estudo do terceiro capítulo, ainda sob o ponto de vista da atualização. De uma forma geral, o estudo tem por objetivo uma reflexão sobre os modelos visados por Eurípides, sobre as adaptações que esses sofreram e, finalmente, sobre a recusa de alguns paradigmas. / This thesis focuses on the tragedy Electra by Euripides taking a more specific look at the way the poet updates this episode in his dramatic version of the myth of Orestes. The thesis is divided in two parts. The first contains the study itself and the second offers an integral translation of the dramatic poem according to the standards of academic translations intended for study. The study encompasses three chapters that address the issue of updating from different perspectives. The first concerns the story of the myth from Homer to its appearance in dramatic poetry and presents a comparative study of the three tragic versions of the myth, namely Aeschylus Oresteia and the Electras of Sophocles and Euripides. From the second chapter on, the focus is on Euripides Electra. This chapter resorts to a detailed analysis of some of the characters and the chorus in order to study the innovations in the plot. Finally, the third chapter discusses the staging of the tragedy, once again from the point of view of the updating. Overall, the study intends to reflect on the models used by Euripides, as well as the adaptations that these models have gone through and, finally, the refusal of some paradigms.

The present dissertation deals with the function of memory and forgetfulness within the story of Electra and Orestes, as presented by Aeschylus, Sophocles and Euripides. The introductory chapter represents a brief account of the philological and theoretical tools of our research. Chapter One proves that words of active memory as well as expressions of forgetfulness are recurrent in the texts. Chapters Two and Three show how different public roles influence the apparatus of memory for various agents. Memory and forgetfulness operate at three levels: private recollection, public function, and divine agent. We analyze the relationship between the heroic ethos and the collective memory in times of crisis. The three authors treat differently the Electra’s memory and her relationship with the logos of her city, especially because of her liminal tendencies. In Euripideas, we further emphasize a particular aspect of memory: a genos-related aspect of Mnēmosynē that affects both the male and the female functions. Chapter Four further analyzes the feminine liminal potential and the ability to access a transcendental form of memory, ability which at times proves morbid and dangerous. The solution to this burden is either divine intervention, or return to private memory through acts of initiatory forgetfulness. Chapter Five deals with the presence of divine memory and the fissures between the Olympians and the chthonian divinities at the level of mnemonic discourse. The three authors have different ways in recording it. However, there is a general tendency to move from grudging memory to healing amnesty. This effort is sustained by the Olympian divinities in the detriment of the Furies and their pre-cultural form of memory in Aeschylus. The picture is further complicated in Euripides by Helen and her physical presence as a memorial of the war, as well as her ultimate disappearance into thin air. In Sophocles, we witness a similar movement from the "logocentric" memory to the visual and symbolic aspect of social Mnēmosynē. Electra depicts the ambiguities and the failure of monumental memory and the ritualistic return to private memory. Chapter Six analyzes the mnemonic filter in theatrical experience. The dramatic performance is a way to share the social burden of memory: with each show, Orestes' murder is re-tried and collectively re-solved. Beside the memory of the author, the theatrical experience involves the perspective of the public and its function as a “social framework” for the memory of the myths. / text

An oblique reading of the European canon constitutes the discursive center for present day Caribbean literature. In doing this, authors question Eurocentric representational codes of Caribbean identity while they create their own discourses in "a certain way", that is, from a certain perspective and by means of hybrid appropriation and synchretization of the very models that feed their imagination. As this analysis purports to show, writers Virgilio Piñera (Cuba) and Aída Cartagena Portalatín (Dominican Republic), by their rereading of the canon, establish in their works hybrid dialogs between the European There and the Caribbean Here. In that line, among the canonical cultural signifiers that the authors adopt, they privilege the appropriation of Greek myths. Piñera does this in his theater piece Electra Garrigó, and Cartagena in her novel Escalera para Electra. In Piñera's work, the main devices utilized are humor, irony, and parody of the text by Euripides, obtained by the used of "choteo", a particular brand of Cuban parodic humor in the manner of Bakhtin's carnavalization. This technique is employed along with the use of heteroglossia, which is utilized by Cartagena as well in her novel. In her work, the Dominican author constructs a parallel and intertextual reading of the same play by the Greek dramatist from the positionality of a female subject. Although with different strategies and in different literary genres, Piñera and Cartagena structure their literary discourses with themes that reflect their cultural identities from the synchretism of difference and from the perspective of a Caribbean subject. This dissertation confirms the efficacy of the discursive strategies they utilize on taking the female subject and the family as the axis of their contesting, unofficial readings of the history and cultural identity of the Caribbean.

Proefschrift--Utrecht. / "Stellingen" (4 p.) laid in. Description based on print version record. Includes bibliographical references.

In Poetics, Aristotle defines lexis as being the “language” of tragedy, and this language is one of the elements of tragedy that creates the mimetic representation. As Aristotle literally describes of the words of tragic composition as “doing” something, I consider lexis as an equivalent to J.L. Austin’s locutionary function of language, and the creation of the mimetic representation as the illocutionary. Aristotle’s conception of tragic composition requires a rigid understanding of the tragic form and its proper deployment as he leaves no room for perlocution, and so I also employ Jan Mukařovský’s theory of intentionality/unintentionality in art to explain how a play such as Euripides’s Electra may be understood as a product of the literary culture in which it arose. I then review historical trends of translating Greek tragedy into English to establish how modern translation is moving further away from reverence to the lexis of tragedy. Finally I address the various sections of Electra, a play with an almost non-existent performance record in English, to establish how I may respect the original lexis in my own translation, thereby imparting a (hopefully) similar effect on a modern audience.

Made available in DSpace on 2017-07-10T18:55:51Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 pedro_ leite.pdf: 2564424 bytes, checksum: e6bee579a2574f114169554419149801 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2016-03-04 / Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior / This study has the objective of developing a comparative and interpretative research, from a group of dramaturgic works produced in different historical contexts which dialogue with the Greek myth of Electra. We have interest in observing and interpreting how, in the mimetic process, the mimemes perform the transposition of the myth; develop a study considering if there was or if there is a differential effect in the process of transposition that encompasses a content, a configuration of the myth; verify in what extent content and aesthetical form are maintained and which works present a rupture to the literary series around the myth of Electra. In this perspective, we intend to reflect about the way playwrights have aesthetically appropriated works from the past to perform the questioning of their historical temporality. In this sense, our study starts from the narrative of oral tradition to proceed with readings of the classics: Oresteia (458 b.C.), by Aeschylus, Electra (between 420 b.C. and 413 b.C.), by Sophocles, and Electra (413 b.C.), by Euripides. The ancient Greek tragedies are here placed in dialogue with two modern dramaturgical works: Electra (1901), by the Spanish writer Benito Pérez Galdós, and Mourning Becomes Electra (1931), by the North American playwright Eugene O'Neill. From the notion of intertextuality and following assumptions of Comparative Literature, the mimetic processes are dealt with in conjunction to reflections on the tragic, the myth, the literary canon, the relation between work and society, among other theoretical contributions brought into dialogue / Este trabalho desenvolve um estudo, de caráter comparativo e interpretativo, a partir de um conjunto de obras dramatúrgicas, produzidas em diferentes contextos históricos, que dialogam com o mito grego de Electra. Interessa aqui observar e interpretar como, no processo mimético, os mímemas realizam a transposição do mito; desenvolver um trabalho de pensar se houve ou há um efeito diferencial no processo da transposição que capta um conteúdo, uma forma do mito; verificar em que medida conteúdo e forma estética se mantêm e quais obras apresentam a ruptura com a série literária em torno do mito de Electra. Nesta perspectiva, pretende-se refletir sobre o modo como dramaturgos se apropriaram esteticamente de obras do passado para realizar problematizações referentes à sua temporalidade histórica. Nesse sentido, a pesquisa parte da narrativa de tradição oral para prosseguir com leituras dos clássicos: Oréstia (458 a.C.), de Ésquilo, Electra (entre 420 a.C. e 413 a.C.), de Sófocles, e Electra (413. a.C.), de Eurípides. As tragédias gregas antigas são, aqui, colocadas em diálogo com duas obras dramatúrgicas modernas: Electra (1901), do autor espanhol Benito Pérez Galdós, e Electra Enlutada (1931), do dramaturgo norte-americano Eugene O Neill. A partir da noção de intertextualidade e seguindo pressupostos da Literatura Comparada, os processos miméticos são tratados em articulação a reflexões sobre o trágico, o mito, o cânone literário, a relação entre obra e sociedade, entre outros aportes teóricos postos em diálogo