The Troubling Play of Gender

By Maria Stadter Fox

Subjects: In literature, European drama, Drama, history and criticism, 20th century, Phaedra (Greek mythology) in literature, History and criticism

Description: "In this study based on close readings of the texts in Russian, French, and English, Maria Stadter Fox demonstrates that Marina Tsvetaeva, Marguerite Yourcenar, and H.D. address the problems of female authority and authorship by reworking the myths of Phaedra, Ariadne, Hippolytus, and Theseus in plays intended for reading rather than performance. By rewriting Greek tragedy they enact their own displacement within a masculine literary tradition and also struggle to define themselves as women writers.". "Although these three modernist writers were not primarily playwrights, as expatriates they were interested in the Euripidean theme of women in exile: each independently chose to rewrite Euripides' Hippolytus, a play in which the protagonist is a woman in exile whose speech, writing, and passion are deeply problematic. Each author approaches the Euripidean material in a different way: Tsvetaeva focuses on gender in language, Yourcenar explores the gendering of a self, and H.D. performs the undoing of gendered oppositions."--BOOK JACKET.