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Full-Text Articles in Arts and Humanities
The Destabilization Of The Future In Racine's Iphigénie, Nina Ekstein
The Destabilization Of The Future In Racine's Iphigénie, Nina Ekstein
Modern Languages and Literatures Faculty Research
The action of Racine's Iphigénie is only a prelude, a pretext, to a much greater future event. The Trojan War looms large before the entire dramatic universe, drawing the characters inexorably forward. The force of the future in this play has long been evident: Georges Poulet discussed it in relation to the weight of the past in Andromaque: "[o]uvrant ou fermant un récit, le moment de l'action perd donc presque entièrement sa valeur propre, sa qualité de seul moment 'présent.' . . . Sa 'réalité' n'est pas assez riche en soi pour triompher d'un passé ou d'un futur. Le …
The Weight Of The Future In Racine's Theater, Nina Ekstein
The Weight Of The Future In Racine's Theater, Nina Ekstein
Modern Languages and Literatures Faculty Research
The future has a curious status in the theater. Like the past, it cannot be represented on stage, but is limited to the field of discourse. The future can be spoken, but not literally pre-figured. Purely textual, lacking any referent, concretized or otherwise, the future appears essentially alien to the theater. For Anne Ubersfeld, "le problème fondamental du temps au théâtre est qu'il se situe par rapport à un icimaintenant ... le théâtre est ce qui par nature nie la présence du passé et du futur. L’écriture théâtrale est une écriture au présent." Yet the future constitutes an important …