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Full-Text Articles in Modern Languages
Another Look At Calderón’S El Príncipe Constante As Tragedy, Matthew D. Stroud
Another Look At Calderón’S El Príncipe Constante As Tragedy, Matthew D. Stroud
Modern Languages and Literatures Faculty Research
The forms and definitions of tragedy have been a frequent preoccupation for James Parr over the course of his distinguished career. One of his more influential articles was "El príncipe constante and the Issue of Christian Tragedy," published in 1986. Parr's approach was primarily ethical and formalist, dealing with the Aristotelian requirements of tragedy: areté, hubris, catharsis. He countered the long and distinguished scholarship that maintains that Christian tragedy is an impossibility by reconsidering, even redefining, hamartia and anagnorisis, and essentially ignoring peripeteia. Hamartia, in his reading, is much more than a flaw or an …
Over The Top: From The Tragic To The Comic In Corneille, Nina Ekstein
Over The Top: From The Tragic To The Comic In Corneille, Nina Ekstein
Modern Languages and Literatures Faculty Research
The notions of tragedy and comedy that one can intuit from the theater of Corneille are markedly different from those found in other authors of the period. This is but one aspect of a larger issue concerning Corneille's placement in the hallowed pantheon of literary history. He is one of the major canonical authors and yet he often disconcerts. He was one of the principal theorists of drama in the seventeenth century and yet he took a number of stands in direct and lonely opposition to his peers. Alain Couprie points out that Corneille "a toujours été un auteur suspect," …
Sophonisbe's Seduction: Corneille Writing Against Mairet, Nina Ekstein
Sophonisbe's Seduction: Corneille Writing Against Mairet, Nina Ekstein
Modern Languages and Literatures Faculty Research
Rewriting the subjects of tragedies was so common throughout the seventeenth century as to be a defining characteristic of the period. While originality was the rule in comedy, in tragedy it was disdained. The arrangement of the action, the power and beauty of the language. the originality of the articulation of the more or less ancient plot: these were the badges of the tragic virtuoso. Rewriting was both a compliment to the predecessor and an act of appropriation, a theft not so much of the subject as of authority over the subject. The tragic playwright rewrote with a presumption of …
Women And Marriage In Corneille's Theater, Nina Ekstein
Women And Marriage In Corneille's Theater, Nina Ekstein
Modern Languages and Literatures Faculty Research
Marriage is ubiquitous in Corneille's theater: there is not a single one of his plays in which marriage is not an issue, in which at least one union is not proposed. In part this state of affairs is due to the fact that the vast majority of Corneille's characters are marriageable. While marriageability is hardly unusual among the young, Corneille inevitably takes his characters at precisely the dramatic moment when the choice of life partner is to be made. For Corneille, that moment is not even limited to the young; not infrequently older characters are in need of a spouse …
Mithridate, Displacement, And The Sea, Nina Ekstein
Mithridate, Displacement, And The Sea, Nina Ekstein
Modern Languages and Literatures Faculty Research
When Mithridate opens, the king is rumored dead in Colchide, killed by the Romans in battle. His return by sea at the end of the first act is not merely a surprise, but also a temporal, geographical, and almost metaphysical displacement. Mithridate's homecoming turns everything upside down and brings the full force of incest to the amorous rivalry between Phamace and Xipharès. Having successfully spread rumors of his own demise, Mithridate seems to return from the dead, arriving after an absence of a year, from a relatively distant land by the waters of the Pont-Euxin (the Black Sea). Life and …
A Woman's Tragedy: Catherine Bernard's 'Brutus', Nina Ekstein
A Woman's Tragedy: Catherine Bernard's 'Brutus', Nina Ekstein
Modern Languages and Literatures Faculty Research
The theater has traditionally been a male domain. The ranks of authors, directors, and even actors have long been overwhelmingly dominated by men. In Western drama, no women playwrights have gained admittance to the literary canon. While never absolute, the relative exclusion of women from dramatic authorship is even greater when the type of theater in question is tragedy. Carol Gelderman asks bluntly: "Why is it that no woman has ever written a great tragedy?". A number of explanations have been put forward that suggest deep-seated links between men and tragedy: Susan Gilbert and Susan Gubar find that "the structure …
Tirso's Wife-Murder Play: La Vida Y Muerte De Herodes, Matthew D. Stroud
Tirso's Wife-Murder Play: La Vida Y Muerte De Herodes, Matthew D. Stroud
Modern Languages and Literatures Faculty Research
Tirso's La vida y muerte de Herodes is a curious play for a number of reasons. Dating most likely from 1620-21, it is one of several plays based on Herod's life both in Biblical accounts and in Josephus' Antiquities. Lodovico Dolce was the first Renaissance playwright to take advantage of the historical but very dramatic subject matter in his Marianna of 1565, and, closer to Tirso's era, Alexandre Hardy and Tristan l'Hermite created French versions; Hardy's dates from the period 1625 to 1632 and Tristan's was published in 1637. Of course, Calderón published in 1637 the version best known to …
The Functions Of The Récit In L'Ecole Des Femmes, Nina Ekstein
The Functions Of The Récit In L'Ecole Des Femmes, Nina Ekstein
Modern Languages and Literatures Faculty Research
Since L'Ecole des femmes was first performed in 1662, much mention has been made of the numerous récits in the play. In La Critique de l'Ecole des femmes, Lysidas criticizes the play because "dans cette comédie-ci, il ne se passe point d'actions, et tout consiste en des récits que vient faire Agnès ou Horace.'' Indeed, the entire love intrigue takes place offstage and is reported in the form of récits. Far from being tiresome recitals, these narratives are integrated into the structure of the play on numerous levels.
Andromaque. V,V: Disorder, Irony, And Progression, Nina Ekstein
Andromaque. V,V: Disorder, Irony, And Progression, Nina Ekstein
Modern Languages and Literatures Faculty Research
The denouement of Andromaque (V,v), as is the case in most tragedies, brings with it a return to order, but the impression of order lies off stage with Andromaque's ascension to the throne rather than on stage with Oreste and Pylade. On stage, disorder reigns, and this disorder is a result of several factors: the pressing necessity of a quick departure, Oreste's madness, and, significantly, the ironic instability of language in this scene. This instability takes the form of statements whose meaning later changes in the light of some subsequent action or information. Such shifts in meaning are not uncommon …
Social-Comic Anagnorisis In La Dama Duende, Matthew D. Stroud
Social-Comic Anagnorisis In La Dama Duende, Matthew D. Stroud
Modern Languages and Literatures Faculty Research
La dama duende has become quite a puzzle. Barbara Mujica, in her article, "Tragic Elements in Calderón's La Dama Duende," discusses several elements of Calderonian tragedy in a work which she ultimately defines as "comedy in its highest sense," (p. 328) and she finds implicit social criticism in its vaguely happy ending. Robert ter Horst refutes the idea of comedy and tragedy as leading a double life by saying, in effect, that comedy is potential tragedy which is averted by "anticipating or delaying the conclusions to which tragedy leaps," but then he goes on to claim that Don Manuel …