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Billotte 1 El Alma griega Greek Tragedy in Latin America Today Thesis by: Katherine J. Billotte Department of Classics and Philosophy Billotte 2 I, Katherine Billotte, hereby declare that this thesis and the work presented in it is entirely my own. Where I have consulted the work of others, this is always clearly stated. Signed: ___Katherine J. Billotte //s//_______ Date: _________1/10/2016_______________ Billotte 3 Abstract: This thesis examines contemporary productions of Greek tragedy in Latin America through the lens of postcolonial, feminist and queer theory. There is a comparative focus on the conflicting influences of French and American culture on Latin American aesthetic history as well as an emphasis on the body as a site of oppression and resistance. The focus of this thesis is on theatrical and cinematic productions primarily produced between the mid-1990s and the present. Moreover, it should be noted that while the actual linguistic geography of Latin America is quite complicated, the work discussed herein is primarily from the Hispanophone. Billotte 4 Table of Contents Introduction ..................................................................................................................................... 6 Methodology ............................................................................................................................... 6 Transculturation ...................................................................................................................... 9 A Brief History of Latin America ............................................................................................. 11 Defining Latin America ............................................................................................................ 28 At Least France is Not America: French Political Thought in Latin America ........................ 35 Doxology of Postcolonial Classical Reception ......................................................................... 38 Doxology of Classical Reception Research Focusing on Latin America ................................. 41 Doxology of Recent Scholarship on Latin American Theatre in Anglo-American Academia 42 In Search of a Primitive Magic: Magical Realism, Primitivism and Greek Tragedy ................... 45 Methodology ......................................................................................................................... 46 Edipo Alcalde (1996) ............................................................................................................ 48 Antigona furiosa (1986) ........................................................................................................ 62 Hipólito y Fedra: una pasión desbocada (2005) .................................................................. 80 The Case of André Delvaux: “Postcolonizer” Magical Realism .......................................... 88 Making Explicit the Connections.......................................................................................... 90 Wanting to Be Real: Surrealism and Magical Realism ........................................................ 91 On Being Primitive: Magical Realism, French Primitivism, and Indigenous Revolution .. 110 Summary ............................................................................................................................. 138 Gender, Sexual Identity and Greek Tragedy in Latin America: ................................................. 139 A Brief History of Feminist and Queer Identity in Latin America ......................................... 140 The Hungry Woman: A Mexican Medea (1995) ..................................................................... 147 Antígona (2006) ...................................................................................................................... 151 Asi es la vida (2000) ............................................................................................................... 156 Edipo y Yocasta (2001) ........................................................................................................... 159 Toward a Theory of the Body ................................................................................................. 169 Camp and the Construction of Masculine Bodies in Argentinean Theatre ........................ 173 The Body and Liberation in Latin American Greek Tragedy ............................................. 177 Mourning, the Body and the Creation of Corporate Identity .............................................. 197 Summary ................................................................................................................................. 204 Conclusion .................................................................................................................................. 206 Summary of Findings .............................................................................................................. 206 Avenues for Further Research ................................................................................................ 207 Billotte 5 Bibliography ............................................................................................................................... 211 Appendix 1: Productions Inspired By Greek Tragedy in Latin America (Selected), 1986-2010…. ..................................................................................................................................................... 256 Appendix 2: Comparative Analysis of Productions of Greek Tragedy by Source Play ............ 257 Appendix 3: Graphic Representation of Greek Tragedies Produced in Latin America by Source Play ............................................................................................................................................. 258 Appendix 4: Greek Tragedies by Source Play, 1900-2010-Comparative Charts ....................... 259 Billotte 6 Introduction On 1 January 1891, the legendary Cuban writer and revolutionary José Martí published his seminal essay “Nuestra America” in New York’s Revista Illustrada. On the 30th of that month, the essay was republished in Mexico’s El Partido Liberal. In the now famed call for Latin American cultural independence from both European and American imperialism, Martí included a rejection of the primacy of the Greco-Roman Classical tradition: La Universidad europea ha de ceder a la universidad americana. La historia de América, de los incas acá, he de enseñarse a dedillo, aunque no se enseñe la de los arcontes de Grecia. Nuestra Grecia es preferible a la Grecia que no es nuestra.1 Despite Martí’s plea, “la Grecia que no es nuestra” has been far from neglected in Latin American literature and culture. This thesis seeks to document and theorise some of the most recent of those engagements with Western antiquity on the Latin American stage, with a focus on Greek tragedy. In doing so, it hopes to shed light on how the contemporary reception of Greek tragedy in various Latin American countries reflects the political and aesthetic conditions in the region as well as the current relationship between Latin America and the West. Methodology This thesis sets out to answer two fundamental questions about the reception of Greek tragedy in contemporary Latin America: (A) What have been the primary cultural, social and educational vehicles through which Greek tragedy has entered contemporary Latin American 1 Martí, 1891: “The European university must give way to the American university. The history of America, from the Inca onward, must be taught in precise detail, even if the archons of Greece are neglected. Our Greece is preferable to the Greece that is not ours.” Billotte 7 cultural life? and (B) How does the reception of Greek tragedy in Latin America reflect wider social and political realities in the region? In addition to this introduction and a conclusion, the thesis has two parts. The first section is the largest of these. In this section, the relationship of contemporary Latin American adaptations of Greek tragedy to nineteenth- and twentieth-century Western aesthetic trends is examined with particular attention to how French and American influences interact with indigenous cultures in the Latin American context. To this end, the section will examine the relationship between Surrealism, the Theatre of the Absurd, and magical realism and the place of indigenous and postcolonial theory and aesthetics in understanding the reception of Greek tragedy in Latin America. At the heart of this analysis is a concern with how Latin American identity effects the Latin American engagement with Greek tragedy. To this purpose, this chapter will begin our discussion of the role of the body in the understanding and articulation of identity in Latin American productions of Greek tragedy. The subsequent section will look at two specific instances of the intersection between identity and the adaptation of Greek tragedy in the Latin American context, first through feminist adaptions and then through queer ones. This section will both include discussions of the translation of Western identity politics, its debates, and images into the Latin American context and the aesthetic and cultural implications of this translation. The significance of the body to identities centred on gender and sexuality will allow us to continue our discussion of and use of the body as a discursive tool that began in the previous chapter. These two sections will be bound together by this discussion