Greek Tragedy and the Middle East

Chasing the Myth

Pauline Donizeau, Yassaman Khajehi, Daniela Potenza, Pauline Donizeau, Yassaman Khajehi, Daniela Potenza

• Publisher: Bloomsbury Academic
• Year: 2024
• Print ISBN: 9781350355699
• eBook ISBN: 9781350355712
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Literature
• Subtopic: Ancient & Classical Drama
• Index: Literature

Employing the idea of interculturality to study Middle Eastern adaptations of Greek tragedy from the turn of 20th century until the present day, this book first explores the earlier phase of the development of Greek classical reception in Middle Eastern theatre. It then moves to focus on modern Arabic, Persian and Turkish adaptations of Greek tragedy both in the early post-colonial and contemporary periods in the MENA and in Europe. Case by case, this book examines how the classical sources are reworked and adapted, as well as how they engage with interculturality, hybridisation and the circulation of aesthetics and models. At the same time, it explores the implications and consequences of expressing socio-political concerns through classical Greek sources.

While Muslim thinkers and translators introduced Greek philosophy – in particular Aristotle's Poetics – to the West in the Middle Ages, adaptations of Greek tragedies only appeared in the MENA region at the very beginning of the 20th century. For this reason, the development of Greek tragedy in the Middle East is difficult to disentangle from colonialism and cultural imperialism. Encompassing language differences and offering for the first time a broad approach on the Middle-Eastern reception of Greek tragedy, this book produces a renewed focus on a fascinating aspect of the classical tradition.

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half-Title Page
• Series Page
• Title Page
• Contents
• List of Illustrations
• List of Contributors
• Foreword
• Introduction
• Part One Adaptations and Translations of Greek Tragedy in a Colonial Context: An Historical Perspective
• 1 Tragic Ways, Tragic Voices: Translating Greek Tragedy into Arabic in the Wake of the Nahḍa
• 2 Oedipus of Thebes on Arab Stages
• 3 From Ancient Greek Theatre to Turkish Theatre and Back: State of the Art
• Part Two The Model as Diversion: A Tool to Tackle Political Issues on the Contemporary Stage
• 4 Brave Women in a Mad World: Euripides and the State of Exception in Arab Theatre
• 5 So Many Medeas! Medea in Iran and Lebanon since 2015
• 6 Antigone in Iran: Towards a Political Subject of Resistance
• 7 When Iraqi Theatre Met the World Again: Haythem Abderrazak and His Looking for Oresteia
• Part Three Greek Tragedy, a Shared Heritage?
• 8 Ambivalence of Interpretation between Israel and France in Hanoch Levin’s Theatre Tragic Materials
• 9 Sophocles’ Antigone by French Director Adel Hakim (2011)Using Greek Tragedy to Pay Tribute to Palestinian Resistance
• 10 Looking at Iraq from Afar: Two Oresteia on European Stages
• 11 Two Oresteia on European Stages: A Moroccan Tragedy
• Afterword
• Index of Subjects
• Index of Names
• Index of Places
• Copyright