Content area
Full Text
(ProQuest: ... denotes non-US-ASCII text omitted.)
In the theatre, Oedipus' pre-eminence among the myths of modernity has been challenged by theoretical takes on Antigone to articulate the main preoccupations of postmodernism. At the same time, productions and adaptations of Antigone proliferate on theatrical stages across the world. In this light, the simultaneous appearance of two edited volumes on the reception of Antigone in the last decades comes as a surprise. However, not only do these two volumes contribute to an examination of the play's recent popularity among theorists and theatre practitioners; by situating Antigone in postmodern and global contexts the essays published here mark a departure from the text's humanistic Western legacies, eloquently represented in George Steiner's celebrated 1984 Antigones.
In the first book, by Wilmer and Zukauskaite, the inquiry into Antigone is set against the 'clash of philosophical, psychoanalytical, and gender interpretations' (p. 1). Rather than offering an overview of the various theoretical engagements of which Antigone has commonly been at the centre, the book provides the site of an ongoing debate between psychoanalysis and feminist criticism. The carefully planned sections of the volume...