A Psychoanalytic Perspective on Tragedy, Theater and Death
Title | A Psychoanalytic Perspective on Tragedy, Theater and Death PDF eBook |
Author | Konstantinos I. Arvanitakis |
Publisher | Routledge |
Total Pages | 134 |
Release | 2019-02-14 |
Genre | Psychology |
ISBN | 042977608X |
A Psychoanalytic Perspective on Tragedy, Theater and Death shines a spotlight on what theater, and especially tragedy, tells us about our ontological selves, by exploring both Euripides’ Bacchae and the work of Tadeusz Kantor. Focusing on the theatrical tradition of the West, the book examines Euripides’ Bacchae, a tragedy about the nature of tragedy, suggesting that the tragic can be defined as an ontological duality rooted in the early experience of the infant’s separation from mother, with whom s/he had, until then, formed a fused Unit. The traumatic rupture of this primal Unit is inscribed in the unconscious as death. The book then considers the defining binary structure of the theatrical setting – (spectator/spectated or fantasy/reality) – before arguing that in staging our ontological dividedness, theater shows its relation to death to be organic. The book concludes by examining in detail the principal works of Polish theater director Tadeusz Kantor, whose search for theater’s identity was, essentially, a search for human identity. Erudite and far-reaching, A Psychoanalytic Perspective on Tragedy, Theater and Death will interest psychoanalysts as well as students, scholars and researchers across the dramatic arts wishing to draw on psychoanalytic ideas.
A Psychoanalytic Perspective on Tragedy, Theatre and Death
Title | A Psychoanalytic Perspective on Tragedy, Theatre and Death PDF eBook |
Author | Konstantinos I. Arvanitakis |
Publisher | |
Total Pages | |
Release | 2019 |
Genre | Psychoanalysis and literature |
ISBN | 9780429431470 |
"A Psychoanalytic Perspective on Tragedy, Theatre and Death shines a spotlight on what theatre, and especially tragedy, tells us about our ontological selves, by exploring both Euripides' Bacchae and the work of Tadeusz Kantor. Focusing on the theatrical tradition of the West, the book examines Euripides' Bacchae, a tragedy about the nature of tragedy, suggesting that the tragic can be defined as an ontological duality rooted in the early experience of the infant's separation from mother, with whom s/he had, until then, formed a fused Unit. The rupture of this primal Unit is inscribed in the unconscious as death. The book then considers the defining binary structure of the theatrical setting- (spectator/spectated or fantasy/reality)- before arguing that in staging our ontological dividedness, theatre shows its relation to death to be organic. The book concludes by examining in detail the principal works of Polish theatre director Tadeusz Kantor, whose search for theatre's identity was, essentially, a search for human identity"--
A Psychoanalytic Perspective on Tragedy, Theater and Death
Title | A Psychoanalytic Perspective on Tragedy, Theater and Death PDF eBook |
Author | KONSTANTINOS I. ARVANITAKIS |
Publisher | Routledge |
Total Pages | 0 |
Release | 2023-05 |
Genre | |
ISBN | 9781032570563 |
A Psychoanalytic Perspective on Tragedy, Theater and Death shines a spotlight on what theater, and especially tragedy, tells us about our ontological selves, by exploring both Euripides' Bacchae and the work of Tadeusz Kantor. Focusing on the theatrical tradition of the West, the book examines Euripides' Bacchae, a tragedy about the nature of tragedy, suggesting that the tragic can be defined as an ontological duality rooted in the early experience of the infant's separation from mother, with whom s/he had, until then, formed a fused Unit. The traumatic rupture of this primal Unit is inscribed in the unconscious as death. The book then considers the defining binary structure of the theatrical setting - (spectator/spectated or fantasy/reality) - before arguing that in staging our ontological dividedness, theater shows its relation to death to be organic. The book concludes by examining in detail the principal works of Polish theater director Tadeusz Kantor, whose search for theater's identity was, essentially, a search for human identity. Erudite and far-reaching, A Psychoanalytic Perspective on Tragedy, Theater and Death will interest psychoanalysts as well as students, scholars and researchers across the dramatic arts wishing to draw on psychoanalytic ideas.
Psychoanalytic Theory of Greek Tragedy
Title | Psychoanalytic Theory of Greek Tragedy PDF eBook |
Author | C. Fred Alford |
Publisher | Yale University Press |
Total Pages | 236 |
Release | 1992-10-11 |
Genre | Drama |
ISBN | 9780300105261 |
Psychoanalytic readings of literature are often reductionist, seeking to find in great works of the past support for current psychoanalytic tenets. In this book C. Fred Alford begins with the possibility that the insights into human needs and aspirations contained in Greek tragedy might be more profound than psychoanalytic theory. He offers his own psychoanalytic interpretation of the tragedies, one that reconstructs the dramatists' views of the world and, when necessary, enlarges psychoanalysis to take these views into account. Alford draws on an eclectic mixture of psychoanalytic theories--in particular the work of Melanie Klein, Robert Jay Lifton, and Jacques Lacan--to help him illuminate the concerns of the Greek poets. He discusses not only well-known tragedies, such as Aeschylus' Oresteia trilogy, Sophocles' Theban plays, and Euripides' Medea and Bacchae, but also lesser-known works, such as Sophocles' Philoctetes and Euripides' so-called romantic comedies. Alford examines the fundamental concerns of the tragedies: how to live in a world in which justice and power often seem to have nothing to do with each other; how to confront death; how to deal with the fear that our aggression will overflow and violate all that we care about; how to make this inhumane world a more human place. Two assumptions of the tragic poets could, he argues, enrich psychoanalysis--that people are responsible without being free, and that pity is the most civilizing connection. The poets understood these things, Alford believes, because they never flinched in the face of the suffering and constraint that are at the center of human existence.
Tragic Drama and the Family
Title | Tragic Drama and the Family PDF eBook |
Author | Bennett Simon |
Publisher | Yale University Press |
Total Pages | 298 |
Release | 1988-01-01 |
Genre | Psychology |
ISBN | 0300058055 |
One of the most important characteristics of tragic drama--as of psychoanalysis-- is the focus on the family. Dr. Bennett Simon here provides a psychoanalytic reading of Aeschylus' Oresteia, Euripedes' Medea, Shakespeare's King Lear and Macbeth, O'Neill's Long Day's Journey into Night, and Beckett's Endgame, six plays from ancient to modern times which involve a particular form of intrafamily warfare: the killing of children or of the possibility of children.
Tragedy and Otherness
Title | Tragedy and Otherness PDF eBook |
Author | Nicholas Ray |
Publisher | Peter Lang |
Total Pages | 242 |
Release | 2009 |
Genre | Family & Relationships |
ISBN | 9783039105014 |
This book presents a new account of the complex relationship between psychoanalytic theory and the key tragic dramas by Sophocles and Shakespeare in which it has often sought exemplars and prototypes. Examining the close historical and theoretical connections between Freud's interpretative appeal to tragic drama and his professed abandonment of the 'seduction' hypothesis in 1897, the author explores the ways in which otherness has subsequently been simplified out of both psychoanalytic theory and the dramatic texts it endeavours to comprehend. Drawing on Jean Laplanche's critical reformulation of the seduction theory, the book offers close rereadings of Oedipus Tyrannus, Julius Caesar and Hamlet in order to outline an approach to tragedy which takes account of the constitutive priority of the other in the itinerary of the tragic subject. By reopening the theme of seduction in relation to these key literary dramas, the book aims to generate a better understanding both of the function which psychoanalysis has called upon tragedy to perform, and the radical modes of otherness within tragedy for which psychoanalysis has hitherto remained unable to account.
The Tragic Effect
Title | The Tragic Effect PDF eBook |
Author | André Green |
Publisher | Cambridge University Press |
Total Pages | 292 |
Release | 2011-03-03 |
Genre | Drama |
ISBN | 9780521144605 |
In this stimulating and wide-ranging 1979 study, André Green demonstrates the relevance of psychoanalysis to literary criticism.