Electra After Freud
Subtitle: Myth And Culture (Cornell Studies in the History of Psychiatry)
Publisher: Cornell University Press
Published: February 17, 2005
Language: eng
Format: Hardcover
Number of pages: 224
ISBN-13: 9780801442612
Subjects: Myths & mythology; Psychoanalysis & psychoanalytical theory; Sociology; Folklore & Mythology; Electra (Greek mythology) in l; Social Science; Literature - Classics / Criticism; Hellenic languages; German literature; European - German; Ancient and Classical; 19th century; 20th century; Electra (Greek mythology) in literature; History and criticism
First sentence: Does the twentieth century belong to Oedipus or to Electra?
Description: "Almost everyone knows about Oedipus and his mother, and many readers would put the Oedipus myth at the forefront of Western collective mythology. In Electra after Freud, Jill Scott leaves that couple behind and argues convincingly for the primacy of the countermyth of Agamemnon and his daughter. Through a lens of Freudian and feminist psychoanalysis, this book views renderings of the Electra myth in twentieth-century literature and culture.".

"Scott reads several pivotal texts featuring Electra to demonstrate what she calls "a narrative revolt" against the dominance of Oedipus as archetype. Situating the Electra myth within a framework of psychoanalysis, medicine, opera, and dance. Scott investigates the heroine's role at the intersections of history and the feminine, eros and thanatos, hysteria and melancholia. Scott analyzes Electra adaptations by H.D., Hofmannsthal and Strauss, Musil, and Plath and highlights key moments in the telling and reception of the Electra myth in the modern imagination"--Book jacket.