The Reception of the Electra Myth from 1960-2005
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PLAINTIVE NIGHTINGALE OR STRIDENT SWAN? – THE RECEPTION OF THE ELECTRA MYTH FROM 1960-2005 Elke Gisela Steinmeyer Submitted in fulfilment of the academic requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Classics, University of KwaZulu-Natal, Durban. October 2007 Supervisor: Dr Suzanne Sharland Co-Supervisor: Mrs Anne Gosling DECLARATION I ................................................................................ declare that (i) The research reported in this thesis, except where otherwise indicated, is my original research. (ii) This thesis has not been submitted for any degree or examination at any other university. (iii) This thesis does not contain other persons’ data, pictures, graphs or other information, unless specifically acknowledged as being sourced from other persons. (iv) This thesis does not contain other persons’ writing, unless specifically acknowledged as being sourced from other researchers. Where other written sources have been quoted, then: a) their words have been re-written but the general information attributed to them has been referenced; b) where their exact words have been used, their writing has been placed inside quotation marks, and referenced. (v) Where I have reproduced a journal publication of which I am an author, I have indicated in detail which part of the publication was actually written by myself alone and not by other authors, editors or others. (vi) This thesis does not contain text, graphics or tables copied and pasted from the Internet, unless specifically acknowledged, and the source being detailed in the thesis and in the References sections. Signed: ............................................................... As the candidate’s supervisor I have/ have not approved this thesis for submission. Signed: ............................................................... As the candidate’s co-supervisor I have/ have not approved this thesis for submission. Signed: ............................................................... i ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I would like to thank sincerely my supervisors for their help and support over the past years: Professor Anne Mackay (now University of Auckland, New Zealand) for initiating the project and for her encouragement and guidance in the first years; Professor John Hilton for taking over the supervision after Professor Mackay’s resignation; Dr Suzanne Sharland and Mrs Anne Gosling for having been prepared to take over the supervision at very short notice and for all their valuable suggestions and comments in the final stages of my thesis. I would like to express my deepest gratitude to my colleagues and friends here in South Africa and all over the world who have supported me in various ways while completing my thesis. I am indebted to each of them, but I would like to thank in particular the following scholars: Prof. Dr. Karin Alt (Freie Universität Berlin, Germany); Professor Michael Ewans (University of Newcastle, Australia); Professor Lorna Hardwick (Open University, UK); Professor Johan Jacobs (University of KwaZulu-Natal, Durban); Dr Elisabeth Klecker (University of Vienna, Austria); Professor Bernhard Kytzler (University of KwaZulu-Natal, Durban); Prof. Dr. Bernd Seidensticker (Freie Universität Berlin, Germany); Professor Betine van Zyl Smit (University of Nottingham, UK). Special thanks go to all members of the Classics and Foreign Languages Programmes, University of KwaZulu-Natal, Durban for their continuous support, and also the members of the Seminar für Klassische Philologie, Freie Universität Berlin, Germany, for giving me access to the library, computers and other facilities of the Seminar during my stays in Berlin. Very special thanks to Susan Haskins for her assistance with the formatting of the final manuscript. I would also like to thank the University of KwaZulu-Natal (former University of Natal) for various financial grants (competitve grant; conference grants for international and national conferences) and Prof. Dr. Dieter Harlfinger (Universität Hamburg, Germany) for awarding me a bursary in the framework of the “Nachwuchsforum des ii Graduiertenkolleg ‘Griechische und byzantinische Textüberlieferung - Wissenschaftsgeschichte - Humanismusforschung und Neulatein’”. I dedicate this thesis to my mother, Gisela Steinmeyer, and to the memory of my late father, Herbert Steinmeyer. iii ABSTRACT The ancient myth of Electra has a rich history of reception through the ages, which is well documented in scholarship. The scholarly debate, however, ceases when it comes to the reception of the myth after 1960, especially after 1970. Very few scholars have critically engaged with the adaptations of the Electra myth in the last three decades. In my thesis I intend to fill in this gap in scholarship by presenting eight adaptations of the Electra myth between 1960 and 2005 covering a span of three continents, three (or four) languages and three media (drama, comic series, film). The common factor between all of these adaptations consists in the fact that they have strong political and societal connotations. I selected them in order to illustrate my underlying argument in this thesis that the Electra myth survives from antiquity until today because it appeals to the creative imagination of authors and playwrights from different historical backgrounds, who use this specific myth as a vehicle in order to engage with their political and societal situation in their respective countries at their respective time. This selection also serves the purpose of illustrating a new trend in the reception of antiquity in modern times, a shift from more traditional high culture adaptations to the more unconventional popular mass media. With my thesis I would like to make a contribution to Reception Studies, a sub- discipline of Classics which has recently emerged from the long-standing field of Classical Tradition, by combing the methodologies of traditional Classical Philology and modern Literary Theory into one single comparative study. It is also an attempt to make some rather lesser known yet not less rewarding plays accessible to a wider audience. I hope that this attempt will prove to be fruitful and that my thesis will be the starting point for further research on more recent adaptations of the Electra myth. iv CONTENTS Acknowledgements ii Abstract iv Contents v Introduction 1 Chapter 1: Literature Review 18 Part One: Electra in Antiquity Chapter 2: The Ancient Sources 43 Part Two: Post-War Electra Chapter 3: László Gyurkó: Szerelmem, Elektra (Electre, mon amour) (1964) 99 Chapter 4: Mattias Braun: Elektras Tod (1970) 120 Part Three: Post-Apartheid Electra Chapter 5: Mark Fleishman et al.: In the City of Paradise (1998) 152 Chapter 6: Mervyn McMurtry: Electra (2000) 174 Part Four: Post-Modern Electra Chapter 7: Electra in the Marvel Universe: Daredevil (1964 -) and Elektra 197 (1996 -) Mark Steven Johnson: Daredevil (2003) and Rob Bowman: Elektra (2005) Conclusion 234 Appendix: Chronology of Primary Sources 238 Bibliography 253 v Introduction In her review of The Oxford History of Literary Translation in English by Peter France and Kenneth Haynes, Susanna Braund calls Reception Studies ‘probably the fastest growing area in the field of classical studies’1. In my thesis I would like to make a contribution to this ‘growing area’. By taking the ancient Electra myth and a selection of lesser known modern adaptations of this myth from the second half of the 20th century as case studies, I will try to develop further the contemporary understanding of what Reception Studies might comprise. Before explaining my own approach, I will try to map out the terrain of ‘Reception Studies’ and to establish how this term differs from similar notions such as Classical Tradition, ‘Rezeptionsgeschichte’, ‘Nachleben’ and ‘Rezeptionsästhetik’. Both the German word ‘Rezeption’ and the English word ‘reception’ are derived from the Latin verb ‘recipere’, which means ‘to receive’2. Therefore a discipline which deals with ‘Rezeption’ or reception should investigate how, when, by whom, and why the work of an earlier epoch has been ‘received’ by later times. In this specific context, the earlier epoch means (predominantly) classical antiquity, i.e. Greece and Rome, and its impact on periods after antiquity. The investigation of later adaptations of an ancient original work is what the abovementioned disciplines (Classical Tradition, Rezeptionsgeschichte, Nachleben, Reception Studies) have in common; they differ, however, in respect of the lenses through which they conduct the investigation. The verb ‘receive’ has per se a passive connotation, of being given or obtaining or getting something which has been handed over or down by somebody else; it has also the connotation of a sort of grateful acceptance. These connotations are reflected in the older term ‘Classical Tradition’ for this discipline; the word ‘tradition’ always implies an idea of inheritance or legacy, the latter being a term frequently found in older research. The German word ‘Nachleben’ also gives the impression of a shadowy existence after the ‘real’ life is over. Both terms assume the unquestionable superiority of the ancient culture and that later times can only try to live up to an unattainable 1 http://ccat.sas.upenn.edu/bmcr/2006/2006-11-16.html 2 See the lemma in Hoad (1993: 392). He gives the following synonyms for the English verb ‘receive’: ‘take to oneself; accept, take in; admit; be the object of’. All of these support my understanding of the term ‘reception’. See also the entry 3148 in Kytzler