« La lutte des sexes », ou les stéréotypes sur les femmes dans Une vie secrète de Lenormand, La Valse des toréadors d’Anouilh et Capitaine Bada de Vauthier

August Strindberg is considered the herald of modern drama. His protean work, which goes from naturalism to mystical aesthetics, anticipating surrealism and the theater of the absurd, even today defies, as it did in his epoch, by its brutal or cruel aspects. Without any doubt, the origin of a certain mistrust towards the author of Inferno would be his declared misogyny. It could be criticized on this subject for disclosing prejudices against women, which in the form of stereotypes, survive to this day. Nevertheless, many French playwrights are inspired by the infernal conflict between man and woman that the Swede describes with a stripping frenzy. Indeed, by analyzing the plays of the French theater of the first half of the 20th century, we notice that some authors take up the motive of the “struggle of the sexes” that will be reworked or “modernized” in their own way. It is interesting in this regard to study the vehicular discourse of clichés on women, found in the works of writers such as Henri-René Lenormand (A Secret Life), Jean Anouilh (Waltz of the Toreadors) and Jean Vauthier (Captain Bada). While none of these playwrights has ever openly declared their hostility to the so-called weaker sex, their texts provide a valuable reservoir of common ground on male-female relationships, which in most cases have not lost their actuality.

Antygona

The translation of Antigone, a play by Jean Anouilh, inspired by Sophocles’ tragedy, written in 1942 and first staged in occupied Paris in 1944. The book is addressed to general readers: students of secondary schools and universities and everyone interested in French drama, intellectual history of the 20th century and the reception of classical culture.

First as Creon, then as Chorus: Slavoj Žižek’s Antigone

The article critically evaluates The Three Lives of Antigone, Slavoj Žižek’s first dramatic work. Žižek’s polemical rewriting of Sophocles’ tragedy is examined in the broader perspective of Žižek’s philosophy and other Antigones: those of Sophocles, Jean Anouilh, Bertolt Brecht and Dominik Smole. Slavoj Žižek has interpreted Sophocles’ Antigone in numerous philosophical works. In his earlier treatises, he mainly gave a cautious summary of Hegel’s, Heidegger’s and Lacan’s theses on Antigone; lately, however, Žižek’s attitude to Sophocles’ Antigone has grown decidedly negative. The main point in Žižek’s critique of Sophocles’ tragedy is that his Antigone is not an appropriate symbol of genuine social revolt. Based on this conviction, Žižek contrived his own version of Antigone with an alternative ending in which the choir carries out a revolution and condemns Antigone to death. It is argued in the article that Žižek’s dramatic project fails to convince. It is essentially a superficial apology for political violence, which can ultimately only be understood as a veiled defence of the political status quo.

A tradutora e o diálogo intermidiático em Antigonick de Anne Carson

Antigonick (2012) é a tradução da dramaturga, escritora e tradutora canadense Anne Carson para a tragédia Antígona de Sófocles. No prefácio “the task of the translator of antigone”, em forma de carta/poema direcionada à personagem Antígona, aparecem comentários sobre encenações anteriores, mais especificamente sobre as montagens de Bertolt Brecht e Jean Anouilh, além da composição 4’33”, de John Cage. Este artigo pretende discutir como essas referências intertextuais e intermidiáticas contribuem para uma leitura que englobe a vasta tradição de recepção dos clássicos sem deixar de considerar as particularidades do trabalho da tradutora e do seu comprometimento com a “mulher de palavra”, Antígona. A fim de pensar o diálogo intermidiático no prefácio, utilizam-se especialmente as discussões propostas por Anne Ubersfeld no texto A representação dos clássicos: reescritura ou museu (1978) e o conceito de tradução intersemiótica presente em “Estudos interartes: conceitos, termos, objetivos” (1997) de Claus Clüver. Acredita-se que uma análise atenta do prefácio possa oferecer pistas importantes sobre o processo criativo e sobre a proposta/projeto de tradução empreendido por Carson.