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.

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.