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Pyrame And Thisbé: Lost In A "Minimalist" World, Nina Ekstein

Modern Languages and Literatures Faculty Research

Discussions of Les Amours tragiques de Pyrame et Thisbé generally center on the eponymous couple. Young star-crossed lovers, opposed by all who surround them, doomed to death, Pyrame and Thisbé belong to a long tradition in Western literature. What I believe merits greater attention is the dramatic world in which the lovers' tragedy unfolds. The young couple occupies the center of the play, but Thisbé and Pyrame seem curiously out of place in, and at odds with, their environment in all its particulars, from characters to objects to scenic space. The two characters are lost in the dramatic universe of …