Understanding Human Life through Psychoanalysis and Ancient Greek Tragedy
Explorations of Euripides, Sophocles and Aeschylus
- 208 pages
- English
- ePUB (mobile friendly)
- Available on iOS & Android
Understanding Human Life through Psychoanalysis and Ancient Greek Tragedy
Explorations of Euripides, Sophocles and Aeschylus
About this book
Drawing parallels between ancient theatre, the analytic setting, and the workings of psychic life, this book examines the tragedies of Euripides, Sophocles, and Aeschylus through a psychoanalytic lens, with a view of furthering the reader's understanding of primitive mental states.
What lessons can we learn from the tragic poets about psychic life? What can we learn about psychoanalytic work from ancient tragedy and playwrights? Sotiris Manolopolous considers how the key tenets of ancient Greek theatre â passion, conflict, trauma, and tragedy â were focussed on because they could not be spoken of in daily life and how these restraints have continued into contemporary life. Throughout, he considers how theatre can be used to stage political experiences and shows how these experiences are a vital part of understanding an analysand within an analytic setting. Drawing on his own clinical practice, Manolopoulos considers what ancient playwrights might teach us about early, uncontained agonies of annihilation and primitive mental states that manifest themselves both within the individual and the collective experience of contemporary life, such as climate change denial and totalitarian politicians.
Drawing on canonical works such as Hippolytus, Orestes, Antigone, and Prometheus Unbound, this book continues the legacy of research that shows how contemporary analysts, students, and scholars can learn from ancient Greek literature and apply it directly to those negatively impacted by the trauma of 21st-century life and politics.
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Information
Table of contents
- Cover
- Endorsements
- Half Title
- Title
- Copyright
- Dedication
- Contents
- Acknowledgments
- Acknowledgements for permissions
- Preface
- Introduction
- 1 The dramatic point of view
- 2 Euripidesâ Hippolytus: drives unleashed
- 3 Euripidesâ Medea: the barbaric reality
- 4 Euripidesâ Orestes: the contamination of the city
- 5 Euripidesâ suppliant women: mourning and femininity
- 6 Euripidesâ Alcestis: narcissism and anti-narcissism
- 7 Euripidesâ Iphigeneia in Tauris: bringing the stranger back home
- 8 Euripidesâ Iphigeneia in Aulis: triumph in sacrifice
- 9 Sophoclesâ Philoctetes: from somatic pain to trading
- 10 Sophoclesâ Antigone: the tragic staging of the political
- 11 Aeschylusâ Prometheus Bound: from suffering to thinking
- 12 A plea for a new political subject
- Index