Antígonas: apropriações políticas do imaginário mítico

Abstract

This thesis aims to investigate how and why the mythical imaginary of Antigone, disseminated from the homonymous Sophocles play, endures in recent writings and is often restored, maintaining a primarily political nature in modern and contemporary dramatic literature. The corpus of this work covers specifically four rewrites of Antigone Jean Anouilhs Antigone (France, 1944), Bertolt Brechts Antigone of Sophocles (Germany, 1948), Griselda Gambaros Antígona Furiosa (Argentina, 1986), and José Watanabe and Yuyachkanis Antígona (Peru, 2000). These works were organized into two distinct macrocontexts: Europe during and shortly after the Second World War; and Latin America. Thischoice supports a paradigmatic view at the rewrites of the myth of Antigone in contexts of violence and state of exception. When human life loses its value and when the established power acquires legal support to exterminate in the name of national security, the mythical image of Antigone seems to reappear with more intensity, as she calls for justice and a worthy burial for the dead. From the corpus analyzed, and with an interdisciplinary methodology, with varied references according to the request of each context and each play, this thesis tried to investigate the conditions of possibility for the appropriations of the mythical imaginary ofAntigone, understanding that it maintains, in each play, a primarily political nature.