Female Heroism in the Works of Corneille and Racine

Female Heroism in the Works of Corneille and Racine PDF Author: Dana Lungu
Publisher: BRILL
ISBN: 9004548556
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 237

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Book Description
This study breaks with traditional readings in terms of tragic model and tragic hero in the works of Racine and Corneille. It departs from the critical tradition of examining the tragic hero as an isolated figure, defined by autonomy; it approaches the behaviour of Médée, Clytemnestre, and Phèdre from a relational perspective. It argues that these female characters belong to the tragic hero category, hold valid and valuable ethical positions and deserve to be treated as equal to their male counterparts. It also redefines the way we look at the tragic dynamic. The characters are no longer antagonists but inadvertent collaborators working towards the tragic outcome in order to satisfy desires and beliefs about themselves and the world that are deeply rooted in their psyche. This book shows that alternative interpretations of the behaviour of Médée, Clytemnestre and Phèdre can be obtained and must be obtained by applying modern methodologies in order to challenge the biased readings from the past and to see these characters in a new light.

Female Heroism in the Works of Corneille and Racine

Female Heroism in the Works of Corneille and Racine PDF Author: Dana Lungu
Publisher: BRILL
ISBN: 9004548556
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 237

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Book Description
This study breaks with traditional readings in terms of tragic model and tragic hero in the works of Racine and Corneille. It departs from the critical tradition of examining the tragic hero as an isolated figure, defined by autonomy; it approaches the behaviour of Médée, Clytemnestre, and Phèdre from a relational perspective. It argues that these female characters belong to the tragic hero category, hold valid and valuable ethical positions and deserve to be treated as equal to their male counterparts. It also redefines the way we look at the tragic dynamic. The characters are no longer antagonists but inadvertent collaborators working towards the tragic outcome in order to satisfy desires and beliefs about themselves and the world that are deeply rooted in their psyche. This book shows that alternative interpretations of the behaviour of Médée, Clytemnestre and Phèdre can be obtained and must be obtained by applying modern methodologies in order to challenge the biased readings from the past and to see these characters in a new light.

Racine’s Roman Tragedies

Racine’s Roman Tragedies PDF Author:
Publisher: BRILL
ISBN: 9004504818
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 409

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Book Description
In two of his most celebrated plays, Britannicus and Bérénice, Racine depicts the tragedies of characters trapped by the ideals, desires, and cruelties of ancient Rome. This international collection of essays deploys cutting-edge research to illuminate the plays and their contexts.

Heroism and Passion in Literature

Heroism and Passion in Literature PDF Author: Graham Gargett
Publisher: Rodopi
ISBN: 9789042016927
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 304

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Book Description
This volume, prompted by the publication in 1999 of Moya Longstaffe's remarkable study, Metamorphoses of Passion and the Heroic in French Literature: Corneille, Stendhal, Claudel, further investigates and analyses the multiple appearances of Passion and Heroism in literature. It pursues the exploration of these themes in a variety of cultures (English, French, German, Spanish), genres, and critical approaches. In addition, the chronological span represented is extremely wide. Contributions range from La Fontaine, Molière and Voltaire to Rimbaud and Camus; from Baudelaire to Beckett; from Wagner to Goytisolo. This very diversity gives necessary context, providing scope for reflection and analysis. Although passion seems timeless, can heroism have any real meaning - apart from an individual and existential one - in our postmodern age? Has a notion at the centre of European culture for so many centuries really disappeared from our intellectual and cultural universe? This volume will be of interest to all students of literature, whatever their critical or linguistic allegiance, since it focuses on the varying manifestations of two vital ingredients of all societies and cultures.

In the Grip of Minos

In the Grip of Minos PDF Author: Matthew Senior
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Drama
Languages : en
Pages : 264

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Book Description
Following Trent, a new mode of confession makes its appearance, a baroque discourse in which "the heart speaks to the heart." Senior argues that Corneille similarly creates a new kind of hero who distinguishes himself as much by the confessional trial of self-statement as by his military exploits. In the work of Racine, Senior notes, Minos appears again, tormenting the conscience of Phedre.

Samuel Johnson and the Art of Sinking 1709-1791

Samuel Johnson and the Art of Sinking 1709-1791 PDF Author: Freya Johnston
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
ISBN: 0199251827
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 284

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Book Description
Johnson's centrality in the late eighteenth century makes his fretfulness about the social and aesthetic boundaries of writing especially fertile and influential. This book suggests that literary taxonomies, inventories, and canons simultaneously construct and reject a hierarchy of ethical as well as aesthetic values, and examines how figures of cultural authority conceive of their relationships to and with the margins of writing and of society.

Comparative Criticism: Volume 4, The Language of the Arts

Comparative Criticism: Volume 4, The Language of the Arts PDF Author: E. S. Shaffer
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 9780521245784
Category : Drama
Languages : en
Pages : 396

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Book Description
Addresses literary theory and criticism, comparative studies in terms of theme, genre movement and influence, and interdisciplinary perspectives.

The History of British Women's Writing, 1610-1690

The History of British Women's Writing, 1610-1690 PDF Author: M. Suzuki
Publisher: Springer
ISBN: 0230305504
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 232

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Book Description
During the seventeenth century, in response to political and social upheavals such as the English Civil Wars, women produced writings in both manuscript and print. This volume represents recent scholarship that has uncovered new texts as well as introduced new paradigms to further our understanding of women's literary history during this period.

The Miscellaneous Prose Works

The Miscellaneous Prose Works PDF Author: Walter Scott
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 902

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Book Description


Women’s Deliberation: The Heroine in Early Modern French Women’s Theater (1650–1750)

Women’s Deliberation: The Heroine in Early Modern French Women’s Theater (1650–1750) PDF Author: Theresa Varney Kennedy
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1317153367
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 289

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Book Description
Women’s Deliberation: The Heroine in Early Modern French Women’s Theater (1650–1750) argues that women playwrights question traditional views on women through their heroines. Denied the powers of cleverness, the authority of deliberation, and the right to speak, heroines were often excluded from central roles in plays by leading male playwrights from this period. Women playwrights, on the other hand, embraced the ideas necessary to expand the boundaries of female heroism. Heroines in plays from the mid-seventeenth through the mid-eighteenth centuries reflect a shift in mentalities toward rationality and female agency. I argue that the "deliberative heroine," emerging at the dawn of the eighteenth century, is the most fully developed, exuding all the characteristics of the modern-day heroine. Although she embodies many of the qualities of her heroine counterparts, she also responds to them. Only the deliberative heroine, based on Enlightenment ideals—such as women’s ability to rationalize and the complex interplay between reason and sentiment—truly liberates female characters from a history of traditional roles. Whereas other heroines act in accordance with social construct or on impulse, the "deliberative heroine" realizes the ideals of the seventeenth-century salons that petitioned for women to have "greater control over their own bodies" (DeJean 21). She is active, and her determination to follow through with her own line of reasoning—that involves both mind and heart—enables her to determine the outcome of events. In the end, this new generation of heroines ushered in an era where women playwrights could make their own contribution to dramatic works at the dawn of the Age of Enlightenment.

Self-culture

Self-culture PDF Author:
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 724

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Book Description