Rebel Women Transformed: Antigone and Medea as Irish Heroines of Justice

This research aims to explore the reciprocal relationship between the arch-texts of Sophocles’ Antigone and Euripides’ Medea and late 20th century adaptations of them by four Irish poets and playwrights. Based on a textual analysis of the original texts and adapted versions, I intend to disclose how the Irish adaptors borrow and rework the characters of Antigone and Medea and their well-known tragic stories in order to provide a critique upon tangible Irish socio-political issues. However, by adopting Antigone and Medea, the Irish authors do not merely use the two heroines as instruments for the satisfaction of their authorial aspirations, but they also provide answers to questions regarding the status and understanding of the two rebellious women that remain obscure in the originals. The research will be situated within Classical Reception Studies, a rather new field of research, which – unlike conventional Classics – focuses on the bidirectional process of adaptation arguing that...Show moreThis research aims to explore the reciprocal relationship between the arch-texts of Sophocles’ Antigone and Euripides’ Medea and late 20th century adaptations of them by four Irish poets and playwrights. Based on a textual analysis of the original texts and adapted versions, I intend to disclose how the Irish adaptors borrow and rework the characters of Antigone and Medea and their well-known tragic stories in order to provide a critique upon tangible Irish socio-political issues. However, by adopting Antigone and Medea, the Irish authors do not merely use the two heroines as instruments for the satisfaction of their authorial aspirations, but they also provide answers to questions regarding the status and understanding of the two rebellious women that remain obscure in the originals. The research will be situated within Classical Reception Studies, a rather new field of research, which – unlike conventional Classics – focuses on the bidirectional process of adaptation arguing that by revisiting a canonical text, the pre-text is a changing object too. It will do so by using theories of reception of the Classics by Charles Martindale, Tim Whitmarsh, and Astrid Van Weyenberg. By doing so, I propose a contemporary understanding of the figures of Antigone and Medea, which liberates them from the moral ambiguity of their transgressive deeds, and instead, considers them as two heroines of Justice.Show less

Leiden University Student Repository

Documents

In Collections

Rebel Women Transformed: Antigone and Medea as Irish Heroines of Justice