Reclaiming Klytemnestra
Subtitle: revenge or reconciliation
By: Kathleen L. Komar.
Publisher: University of Illinois Press
Published: 2003
Place of publication: Urbana
Language: eng
Number of pages: 224
Subjects: Clytemnestra (Greek mythology) in literature.; Literature, Modern -- 20th century -- History and criticism.; Literature -- Women authors -- History and criticism.; Women and literature -- History -- 20th century.; Women murderers in literature.; Adultery in literature.; Revenge in literature.
Description: "Reclaiming Klytemnestra explores the surprisingly numerous revisions by late twentieth-century women writers of the famous axe-wielding Greek queen who killed her husband in his bath when he returned from the Trojan War." "By slaying her husband, Klytemnestra exposed the competing ethics of motherhood and matrimony at the beginnings of the Western tradition. In this interdisciplinary study, Kathleen L. Komar first examines the classical archetype of Klytemnestra established by writers such as Aeschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides. Turning to the twentieth century, she investigates the work of women who, since the 1960s, have reconceptualized Klytemnestra's actions and motivations in the contemporary contexts of dance, fiction, drama, poetry, and the Internet. These revisions include a Martha Graham ballet; a performance piece by multiple authors; a play by Dacia Maraini; novels by Christa Reinig, Nancy Bogen, Marie Cardinal, and Christa Wolf; a short story by Christine Bruckner; a poem by Laura Kennelly; a mixed-genre piece by Severine Auffret; and two Internet presentations."--Jacket.
Notes: Includes bibliographical references (p. [195]-211) and index.
Table of contents: title: Introduction: Foundations of western culture, re-collecting Klytemnestra; title: The classical Klytemnestra; title: Klytemnestra takes center stage : Klytemnestra in the pre- and early 1980s; title: Klytemnestra in the mid- to late 1980s; title: The fate of Klytemnestra in the 1990s : upstaged by her daughters; title: Conclusion: The issues for women re-visionists; trauma, violence, and a new gender dialogic for Klytemnestra at the end of the millennium.