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

This dissertation studies the Elysian Fields, the Furies, and Tartarus in the Augustan elegists (Tibullus, Propertius, and Ovid) and in several pseudepigraphic elegies (the Corpus Tibullianum, the pseudo-Ovidian Consolatio ad Liviam, and the pseudo-Vergilian Elegiae in Maecenatem). I ask three guiding questions: 1. Does there exist a trademark “elegiac” afterlife, distinct from the afterlife in epic poetry? 2. Can we speak of a “Propertian” underworld, as opposed to a “Tibullan” or “Ovidian” Hades? 3. How do the attitudes of the love elegists, both collectively and individually, change over time? I argue that the love elegists constantly negotiate and renegotiate genre, poetics, and changing social circumstances through such literary set pieces as Elysium, the Erinyes, and the prisoners of Tartarus (Tantalus, Ixion, Sisyphus, Tityos, and the Danaids). Chapter 1 demonstrates how the gates to the Elysian Fields — explicitly open to men and women in Tibullus, implicitly open only to women in Propertius, and evidently open only to birds in Ovid — close slowly over time. Chapter 2 proves that the Eumenides have a metaliterary function in the elegies of Propertius. Just as the Furies enforce a strict family hierarchy and maintain the natural order of the universe, so too do the sisters keep Propertius and Tarpeia in their proper generic spheres. Chapter 3 discusses the antagonistic attitude Tibullus harbors towards Tartarus and the sympathetic mindset Propertius has adopted. Tibullus understands the prisoners as mirror images of the various roadblocks that stand between him and romantic satisfaction. Propertius, meanwhile, sees the inmates as allies in love. Chapter 4 focuses specifically on Tartarus in Ovid’s elegies, with special interest in the poet’s changing treatment of the same myths before and after exile. Chapter 5 studies pseudepigrapha as early and important reception of the eschatological ideas advanced in Augustan love elegy.

<p>What are the basic thoughts formulated in the Heraclitean fragments? A cosmology, a philosophy of nature, the idea that all can be reduced to a single substance? There is always a risk that Heraclitus is fitted into a thought pattern he doesn’t belong to, if we – from our present horizon – focus on continuity in an attempt to frame his thinking as part of an overall progress, running from the so-called pre-Socratics to Aristotle, in the history of philosophy. If we picture the dawn of Western civilization as an early development of scientific thinking, built on a gradual and continuous growth of knowledge, we will easily go astray as we try to discover the Greek origins of philosophy. Assuming, for example, that the readings of Heraclitus as a natural philosopher have come to a dead end, can we approach the fragments from a different angle?</p><p>The aim of this paper is not to give a systematized reading of all the remaining fragments of Heraclitus, but neither to necessarily contradict the various interpretations that emphasise how these shattered remains reflect a coherent philosophy. The focal point is the role of the sun in the fragments, but every chapter presents different perspectives, thematically possible to connect to (Diels-Kranz) Fragm 94: “The sun will not transgress his measures. If he does, The Furies, ministers of Justice (<em>Dikê</em>), will find him out.” (transl. C.H. Kahn)  This is the centre of the text, the hub that thematically will intertwine the Heraclitean sun with philosophical questions of measure, necessity, law, violence and destiny.</p><p>It is argued that a tragic structure is discernable in Fragm 94, a structure distinguished and displayed as three oscillating layers: myth, tragedy and philosophy. The archaeological approach shows remains of an archaic (Homeric) heritage, a mythological framework crucial for the expression of a tragic experience. The mytopoetical background of the fragment indicates a series of tragic markers – <em>helios</em>, <em>metra</em>, <em>furies</em> etc. – a layer revealing possible resemblances to early Greek tragedy. The third layer shows how this experience, from a philosophical perspective, in the first phase of philosophy, before the consolidation of philosophical concepts, is staged as the tragic harmony we find in Heraclitus Fragm 94.</p>

What are the basic thoughts formulated in the Heraclitean fragments? A cosmology, a philosophy of nature, the idea that all can be reduced to a single substance? There is always a risk that Heraclitus is fitted into a thought pattern he doesn’t belong to, if we – from our present horizon – focus on continuity in an attempt to frame his thinking as part of an overall progress, running from the so-called pre-Socratics to Aristotle, in the history of philosophy. If we picture the dawn of Western civilization as an early development of scientific thinking, built on a gradual and continuous growth of knowledge, we will easily go astray as we try to discover the Greek origins of philosophy. Assuming, for example, that the readings of Heraclitus as a natural philosopher have come to a dead end, can we approach the fragments from a different angle? The aim of this paper is not to give a systematized reading of all the remaining fragments of Heraclitus, but neither to necessarily contradict the various interpretations that emphasise how these shattered remains reflect a coherent philosophy. The focal point is the role of the sun in the fragments, but every chapter presents different perspectives, thematically possible to connect to (Diels-Kranz) Fragm 94: “The sun will not transgress his measures. If he does, The Furies, ministers of Justice (Dikê), will find him out.” (transl. C.H. Kahn)  This is the centre of the text, the hub that thematically will intertwine the Heraclitean sun with philosophical questions of measure, necessity, law, violence and destiny. It is argued that a tragic structure is discernable in Fragm 94, a structure distinguished and displayed as three oscillating layers: myth, tragedy and philosophy. The archaeological approach shows remains of an archaic (Homeric) heritage, a mythological framework crucial for the expression of a tragic experience. The mytopoetical background of the fragment indicates a series of tragic markers – helios, metra, furies etc. – a layer revealing possible resemblances to early Greek tragedy. The third layer shows how this experience, from a philosophical perspective, in the first phase of philosophy, before the consolidation of philosophical concepts, is staged as the tragic harmony we find in Heraclitus Fragm 94.

The thesis deals with four plays written by French dramatist and theorist of feminism Hélène Cixous for the Parisian Théâtre du Soleil under the directorial guidance of Ariane Mnouchkine. The analysis focuses on three different perspectives - firstly on écriture feminine, defined in the 1970s by Cixous herself, secondly on exile studies, a field of literary criticism concerned with the writings of exiled authors and exile as a fundamental category of human existence, and lastly on the concept of orientalism developed in the 1970s by American literary historian of Palestinian origin Edward Said.