The Treatment of Myth in Modern Drama
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The Treatment ofMyth in Modern Drama (1923-1950): Towards a Typology ofMethods Aspasia Palouka Department of Drama Goldsmiths College of London University Thesis submitted for the degree of Doctor in Philosophy April,2005 Abstract of Thesis The Treatment ofMyth in Modern Drama (1923-1950): Towards a Typology of Methods Between the years 1923 and 1950, a great number of plays employed myth as subject matter or theme. The thesis examines this phenomenon in relation: a) to the modernist movement and its fascination with myth and mythological motifs, b) in relation to the efforts of modernist artists to find means appropriate to non-naturalistic modes of expression. Criticism up to now has surveyed myth-plays focusing on the thematic and ideological treatment of myths (psychoanalytic, religious, political, etc). This thesis proposes a new approach to this issue: it concentrates on techniques of incorporating myth in the structure of a play and on how myth functions within and through it. It identifies three prevailing techniques as methods. These methods form exclusive categories within the period under discussion. Therefore, plays are grouped according to method in order to explore a series of different dramaturgical strategies. Each of the three methods itself reflects a self-conscious attitude towards myth. Therefore, the thesis does not limit itself merely to investigating methods of incorporating myths into dramatic structures. It also examines the ideological sub stratum of those attitudes as they determine the discourses developed. 2 Table of Contents Acknowledgements 4 Dedication 5 1. Introduction 6 2. Joyce, Eliot and the Development of the 'Mythical Method' 24 3. T. S. Eliot's Development of the 'Mythical Method' 40 4. O'Neill and the Mythical Method 77 5. Myth as Plot: French Playwrights of the Inter-War Years 127 6. Brecht's Historicist Approach to Myth and Tragedy 180 7. Conclusion 216 Notes 225 Bibliography 261 3 Acknowledgements This thesis began some years ago. In the course of my long research I discussed and exchanged views with a lot of people that offered useful information and advice. Unable to mention each by name, I thank them all. For the support they have given me throughout the writing of this thesis, I want to thank my former supervisor, Katharine Worth, Professor Emeritus, University of London, for her wise comments, her constant support and encouragement; Elizabeth Sakellaridou, Professor of Drama at the English Department of the University of Thessaloniki who kindly offered comments and directed my attention to helpful sources; Maro Germanou, Reader at the English Department of the University of Athens, for her advice; last but not least, my supervisor, Robert Gordon, for our long and stimulating discussions, his endless support and encouragement. 4 To Theodoros 5 1. Introduction In 1986, an issue ofModern Drama published a checklist of twentieth-century plays with Greek myths as subject matter or theme. The list was far from being conclusive, the editor warned; still, it reached a total of over seven hundred and forty plays, more than half of them written in the period between the two wars. 1 The reappearance of myths in the first part of the twentieth century occurred not only in drama but in all forms of artistic creation; and although drama is the genre that had always been closely associated with Greek mythology, the new techniques of myth handling first emerged in fiction and in poetry. It is difficult to grasp the extent of this enormous fascination, the results of which oscillate from unimaginative adaptations of the Greek classics, to 'fashionable gimmick'<, to genuine innovation. James Joyce vividly described the atmosphere of the early Twenties in Paris: 'Odyssey very much in the air here. Anatole France is writing Le Cyclope, G. Faure, the musician, an opera Penelope, Giraudoux has written Elpenor... Guillaume Apollinaire Les Mamelles de Tiresias... Madame Circe advances regally toward her completion.'3 Thomas Mann reflecting on the phenomenon observed: 'As for that "return" of the European spirit to the highest, to the mythical realities... it is, from a cultural point of view, a truly good thing...,4 A number of scholars have argued that the recourse to myth is one of the distinctive features of the modernist movement while others maintain that, despite the prolific use, there are no genuinely original attitudes to myth in those years." One is in danger of stating the obvious when calling to mind the fact that the era of Modernism is not the only one that dealt extensively with myths. From the Renaissance onwards, myths abound in every form of artistic expression, constantly serving as a source of inspiration. The French and German neo-classical drama, with Racine, Corneille, Goethe and Kleist, ihe Parnassian, the Romantic and the Symbolist movements appropriated plots, locale, iconography and all sorts of material from Greek mythology. Post-modernism as well has displayed a genuine concern for myths as the work of Heiner MUller, Howard Barker, Timberlake Wertenbaker and others testifies. In this respect, it might seem an exaggeration to connect myth so exclusively with Modernism. Behind such claims, however, the implied question of why myths appear over and over again and how they relate to each historical period retains its 6 topicality. Karl Marx posed this very question over a hundred years ago" and the question of accounting for the fascination and authority primitive myths exercise on Western thought and creativity still remains. The question forms part of the discourse developed in the Marxist theory of culture, in the theories of Freud and Jung, Northorp Frye, Levi-Strauss, A. J. Greimas and Roland Barthes, as well as of thinkers and scholars who have compiled a voluminous literature on the subject: Why the recurrence of myths and why, in particular, should myths become so vital for twentieth-century thought and art? Towards the last decades of the nineteenth century the predominant modes of Realism and subsequently of Naturalism drew their material from the experiences of everyday life and myths ceased to be the privileged theme of writers, poets and dramatists. Between 1840-1895, the new sciences of Comparative and Anthropological Mythology systematically aligned myth with rationality. They attempted to explain 'the barbaric and absurd stories concerning the beginnings of things, the origin of mankind,.8 Myths were seen as 'fantasies' which were 'foolish or disgustingly immoral,9 as products of barbarians that 'do not yet speak the language of reason' .10 They were 'an unconscious product of language of which man is always the dupe and never the originator' .11 Thus, 'mythology this scourge of Antiquity, is, as a matter of fact, a disease of language,.12 The positivistic and scientifically rationalistic spirit based on empirical observation prevailed and seemed to be at odds with the dynamic reappearance of myth/s that had already occurred by the tum of the new century. One could wonder why writers renowned for their modernity and their rejection of the past turned so persistently to myth. Why would a century orientated towards analytic modes of thought, self-conscious intellectualism and aestheticism, multiplied ideologies and sophisticated discourse 'return' to myth? Modernism is not only the era of highly intellectualised discourse and astounding scientific achievement; it is also one of violent political, social and cultural upheavals, revolutions and counter-revolutions, metaphysical absence, the unlocking of the human psyche and conscious antithesis to some, at least, aspects of the positivistic spirit of the second half of the nineteenth century. As 'the world was falling apart, the centre cannot hold,l3 the deep rift created in the established continuities of Western culture was expressed in a double-fold movement: scientific and technological achievement that raced ahead of man's ability to cope with their consequences and 7 recourse to the roots of human imagination, thought and creativity - with myths as their ultimate expression. Modernism is not the only era that dealt prolifically with myth; yet, it is one inextricably aligned with myth. It was the unsettling zeitgeist of the early twentieth century that accounted not only for some new usages of mythology but also for making myth a dynamic component of scientific disciplines, of politics and art - finally an integral part of how the modem mind perceived the world. The tum of the twentieth century saw the publication of two seminal works: James Frazer's The Golden Bough and Sigmund Freud's The Interpretation of Dreams. 14 Frazer focused on the kinship and universality of certain myths. His followers, the Cambridge School of Anthropology, traced common elements found in various mythologies as well as common ritualistic patterns that underlie Greek tragedy and comedy and survive in modem cultures. Freud's The Interpretation of Dreams in 190115 was a historical landmark. Inaugurating a tradition that aligned myth with the workings of the human unconscious, Freud saw the exemplary manifestations of instinctual drives repressed in the unconscious and the germs of dream material in Greek myths. For Freud, myths are the products of infantile psychological stages in the life of man. Carl Jung's theory differentiated itself from Freud's, shifting emphasis from the private domain of the unconscious to that of the 'collective unconscious', which is universal and identical to all mankind, irrespective to individual cultures. Jung made the fundamental distinction between myth and some primordial, isolated images - figures actually (the daemon, the animus and anima, the shadow, the wise man, etc.) found in myths. Jung called these images archetypes.l" Described as psychological fixations rather than repressions, the archetypes take us back to our sacred origins. These primordial images constantly recur in the course of history and appear whenever creative fantasy is freely expressed. As images springing from the 'colletive unconscious', they are timeless and a-historical, adjustable to present language through art.