Anne Carson's long-term obsession with Herakles emerges from endless contradictory representations of this unique Greek hero/eventual divinity. The colossal Herakles of the famed labors kills an array of monstrous beasts; wears a lion skin; uses a bow and arrow and club more often than the heroic shield and spear; defeats whole cities or armies by himself; briefly takes over holding the world on his shoulders from the god Atlas; travels the globe from far east to far west; descends to Hades to retrieve the three-headed dog of the Underworld, Cerberus; and makes the world safe for civilization from the margins. This figure is ubiquitous on Greek pots and temples but is remote and not quite accessibly human. Herakles/Hercules was also for Greeks and Romans a stoic hero who accepts a life of continuous toil because Hera, the goddess who hated him from the moment Zeus conceived him with the mortal...
Reframing Tragedy
Helene P. Foley is Claire Tow Professor of Classics, Barnard College, Columbia University. She is the author of books and articles on Greek epic and drama, on women and gender in Antiquity, and on modern performance and adaptation of Greek drama. Her books include Ritual Irony: Poetry and Sacrifice in Euripides, The Homeric Hymn to Demeter, Female Acts in Greek Tragedy, Reimagining Greek Tragedy on the American Stage, and Euripides: Hecuba. She is also the co-author of Women in the Classical World: Image and Text. She edited Reflections of Women in Antiquity and co-edited Visualizing the Tragic: Drama, Myth and Ritual in Greek Art and Literature, Antigone on the Contemporary World Stage, and Aristophanes and Politics.
Helene P. Foley is Claire Tow Professor of Classics, Barnard College, Columbia University. She is the author of books and articles on Greek epic and drama, on women and gender in Antiquity, and on modern performance and adaptation of Greek drama. Her books include Ritual Irony: Poetry and Sacrifice in Euripides, The Homeric Hymn to Demeter, Female Acts in Greek Tragedy, Reimagining Greek Tragedy on the American Stage, and Euripides: Hecuba. She is also the co-author of Women in the Classical World: Image and Text. She edited Reflections of Women in Antiquity and co-edited Visualizing the Tragic: Drama, Myth and Ritual in Greek Art and Literature, Antigone on the Contemporary World Stage, and Aristophanes and Politics.
Helene P. Foley; Reframing Tragedy. PAJ: A Journal of Performance and Art 2022; 44 (2 (131)): 143–147. doi: https://doi.org/10.1162/pajj_r_00620
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