Details

Autor(en) / Beteiligte

• Paul, Salomé

Titel

Marina Carr and Greek Tragedy: Feminist Myths of Monstrosity

Auflage

1

Ort / Verlag

Oxford: Routledge

Erscheinungsjahr

2024

Link zum Volltext

Quelle

Alma/SFX Local Collection

Beschreibungen/Notizen

• Marina Carr and Greek Tragedy: Feminist Myths of Monstrosity examines the feminist transposition of Greek tragedy in the theatre of the contemporary Irish dramatist Marina Carr. Through a comparison of the plays based on classical drama with their ancient models, it investigates Carr's transformation not only of the narrative but also of the form of Greek tragedy. As a religious and political institution of 5th-century Athenian democracy, tragedy endorsed the sexist oppression of women. Indeed, the construction of female characters in Greek tragedy was entirely disconnected from the experience of womanhood lived by real women in order to embody the patriarchal values of Athenian democracy. Whether praised for their passivity or demonised for showing unnatural agency and subjectivity, women in Greek tragedy were conceived to (re)assert the supremacy of men. Carr's theatre stands in stark opposition to such a purpose. Focusing on women's struggle to achieve agency and subjectivity in a male-dominated world, her plays show the diversity of experiencing womanhood and sexist oppression in the Republic of Ireland, and Western societies more generally. Yet, Carr's enduring conversation with the classics in her theatre demonstrates the feminist willingness to alter the founding myths of Western civilisation to advocate for gender equality.