Unit:
Κατεύθυνση Αγγλόφωνη Λογοτεχνία και ΠολιτισμόςLibrary of the School of Philosophy
Author:
Paterakis Nikitas
Supervisors info:
Κωνσταντίνος Μπλατάνης, Επίκουρος Καθηγητής, Τμήμα Αγγλικής Γλώσσας και Φιλολογίας, ΕΚΠΑ
Ασπασία Βελισσαρίου, Καθηγήτρια, Τμήμα Αγγλικής Γλώσσας και Φιλολογίας, ΕΚΠΑ
Μαρία Κουτσουδάκη, Καθηγήτρια, Τμήμα Αγγλικής Γλώσσας και Φιλολογίας, ΕΚΠΑ
Original Title:
Sophocles’ Ajax in Contemporary War Theatre: Anti-War Polemics in Ellen McLaughlin’s Ajax in Iraq and Timberlake Wertenbaker’s Our Ajax
Translated title:
Sophocles’ Ajax in Contemporary War Theatre: Anti-War Polemics in Ellen McLaughlin’s Ajax in Iraq and Timberlake Wertenbaker’s Our Ajax
Summary:
Known as the bulwark of ancient Greek mythology and as a hero second only to Achilles, Ajax found his way from the Trojan battlefield to the Sophoclean stage. Along the lines of Sophoclean tragic tradition, Ajax, the individual Homeric hero, is sacrificed by the tragedian for the well-being of the collectivity of the Polis. In this thesis I will attempt to use Sophocles’ Ajax as a paradigm in order to build a theoretical scaffold regarding the significance of ancient Greek tragedy in the political vios of classical Athens – not merely as an artistic representation/ reflection of the political structures and processes but as an indispensably internal mechanism of Athenian democracy. From there on, I will engage in a transhistorical examination of the dramatic appropriations of Ajax in order to debate, through the theoretical perspectives of George Steiner and Raymond Williams, the political significance of Greek tragedy and of its various appropriations transhistorically. The aforementioned methodological framework which I aspire to establish will be instrumental in order to explore the political significance of ancient Greek tragedy in postmodern theatre and drama. Specifically, I will examine how Ellen McLaughlin and Timberlake Wertenbaker, in their plays Ajax in Iraq (2011) and Our Ajax (2013) respectively, rewrite Sophocles’ Ajax so as to comment upon the thorny issue of the American imperialist interventions in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Main subject category:
English literature
Keywords:
Sophocles, Ajax, Iraq War, Comparative Literature, Contemporary Anglophone Theater, Adaptation
File:
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Ajax.pdf
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