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In this practice-based thesis I examine how I interpreted the myth of Helen of Troy in solo and collaborative forms of playwriting. For the interpretation of Helen’s myth in solo playwriting, I wrote a script that contextualised in a contemporary world the most significant characters of Helen’s myth which are: Helen, Menelaus, Hermione, Paris, Hecuba, Priam. This first practical research project investigated how characters that were contemporary reconstructions of Menelaus, Hermione, Paris , Hecuba, Priam, Telemachus were affected by Helen as an absent figure, a figure that was not present on stage but was remembered and discussed by characters. For the interpretation of Helen’s myth in collaborative playwriting, I asked three female performers to analyse the character of Helen and then conceptualise and write their own Helen character. The performers’ analyses and rewritings of Helen inspired me to write a script whose story evolved around three Helen characters that were dead and interacted with one another in a space of death. This script formed part of my second practical research project that explored the ways of making Helen’s character present (both scripts that culminated out of my two practical research projects are included in the section of the Accompanying Material). I analyse the process of writing the scripts of the first and second practical research project through the use of Jungian archetype theory. In the first chapter of the thesis, I explore what an archetype is according to Jungian theory and then explain how this theory enables me to comment on the process of reinterpreting the myth of Helen of Troy through the writing of the two scripts. In the second chapter, which is the commentary on the first practical research project, I show how archetype theory provides a theoretical tool with which I can clarify and analyse how I reinterpreted and/or reworked the archetypal emotional energies of Menelaus, Hermione, Hecuba, Priam, Paris, Telemachus in the writing of new characters. In the third chapter, which is the commentary on the second practical research project, I investigate how the archetype theory helped me identify the key emotional experiences of the performers’ Helen characters, experiences which I organised and developed further in the writing of my own Helen characters. I conclude my thesis by arguing that my scripts cannot provide a final interpretation of Helen’s myth because they still lack a certain overarching theme or concept.

Texte remanié de : Thèse de doctorat : ? : University of Tübingen : 1997. / Based on the author's PhD thesis submitted at the Faculty of Geosciences (University of Tübingen) in June 1997. Bibliogr. p. 113-124.

This dissertation argues that Homer's Iliad depicts the Trojan landscape as participant in or even victim of the Trojan War. This representation alludes to extra-Homeric accounts of the origins of the Trojan War in which Zeus plans the war to relieve the earth of the burden of human overpopulation. In these myths, overpopulation is the result of struggle among the gods for divine kingship. Through this allusion, the Iliad places itself within a framework of theogonic myth, depicting the Trojan War as an essential step in separating the world of gods and the world of men, and making Zeus’ position as the father of gods and men stable and secure. The Introduction covers the mythological background to which the Iliad alludes through an examination of extra-Homeric accounts of the Trojan War’s origins. Chapter One analyzes a pair of similes at Iliad 2.780-85 that compare the Akhaian army to Typhoeus, suggesting that the Trojan War is a conflict similar to Typhoeus’ attempt to usurp Zeus’ position as king of gods and men. Chapter Two demonstrates how Trojan characters are closely linked with the landscape in the poem’s first extended battle scene (4.422-6.35); the deaths of these men are a symbolic killing of the land they defend. Chapter Three discusses the aristeia of Diomedes in Book 5, where his confrontations with Aphrodite, Ares, and Apollo illustrate the heroic tendency to disrespect the status difference between gods and men. Athena’s authorization of Diomedes’ actions reveals the existence of strife among the Olympian gods, which threatens to destabilize the divine hierarchy. Chapter Four examines the Akhaian wall whose eventual destruction is recounted at the beginning of Book 12. The wall symbolizes human impiety and its destruction is a figurative fulfillment of Zeus’ plan to relieve the earth of the burden of unruly humanity. Finally, Chapter Five treats the flußkampf and Theomachy of Books 20 and 21, episodes adapting scenes of divine combat typically associated with the struggle for divine kingship. In the Iliad, these scenes show that Zeus’ power is unassailable. / text

[Truncated abstract] This thesis focuses on the significance of the beauty of Helen of Troy in the Encomium of Helen written by the fourth-century philosopher Isocrates. Previous traditions, and especially epic poetry and tragedy, had assessed Helen’s beauty and either blamed or excused her for causing the Trojan War. Isocrates moved beyond this dichotomy to create a new focus on her beauty as the ultimate source of all that made Greek culture distinctive. Modern scholarship, however, has been generally unsympathetic we may almost say blind to this projected beauty. The meaning of beauty in Isocrates’ work has been overlooked by scholars in favor of its rhetorical structure. The work was criticized for its disjointed arrangement and lack of seriousness. The Helen has been interpreted as a reaction to contemporary rhetorical issues or as merely an educational manifesto. This thesis aims to identify and clarify the ideology underlying Isocrates’ construction of Helen’s beauty in his encomium. … The Helen of Isocrates is also compared with the contemporary Platonic work Phaedrus, which explores beauty as a means of arriving at pure knowledge. In this case, comparisons are drawn thematically and reveal that while the two works share similar topics and aims regarding the notions of beauty, Isocrate’s aesthetic idea is much more practically grounded and intended to be of benefit to the entire society when compared to the more idealistic and individual Platonic notion. Finally, the reasons for Isocrates’ choice of beauty as a major theme for the Helen are explored through a comparison of Helen’s beauty to that of Hellas an equation which Isocrates deems important for the fourth-century society.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Zurich, 1997. / Includes glossary. Includes bibliographical references (p. [925]-942) and index.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Zurich, 1997. / Includes glossary. Includes bibliographical references (p. [925]-942) and index.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Columbia University, 1940. / Vita. eContent provider-neutral record in process. Description based on print version record. "List of abbreviations and bibliography": p. [79]-81.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Johns Hopkins University, 1899. / Life.