At the Feet of the Gods: Myth, Tragedy, and Redemption in Alfonso Reyes's Ifigenia cruel

摘要

Alfonso Reyes describes his Ifigenia cruel (Cruel Iphigenia), an adaptation of Euripides’ Iphigenia at Tauris, as a play about an individual's redemption from a cycle of violence: Iphigenia, forced to go back to her murderous family in Greece, refuses to do so and remains as a priestess in Tauris, sacrificing human victims to Artemis. This article offers a qualification of Reyes's reading through the following two aspects: his choice of myth and his understanding of Greek tragedy. The alternative version of the myth, that of the Taurian Iphigenia, allows Reyes to explore the possibility of redemption. At the core of this version there are two types of violence, human and sacred; Reyes concentrates on the human aspect of this violence in his reading of the play, but the sacred poses a problem: to liberate herself from the crimes of her family, Iphigenia chooses human sacrifice. Reyes's understanding of Greek tragedy provides a solution to this apparent contradiction. Since tragedy, for Reyes, is the manifestation of universal forces that transcend the individual, Iphigenia's redemption through sacred ritual is a pull toward the universal that projects this violence onto the cosmic forces that engulf her.View full textDownload full textKeywordsadaptations of Greek tragedy, redemption, Alfonso Reyes, the tragic, violenceRelated var addthis_config = { ui_cobrand: "Taylor & Francis Online", services_compact: "citeulike,netvibes,twitter,technorati,delicious,linkedin,facebook,stumbleupon,digg,google,more", pubid: "ra-4dff56cd6bb1830b" }; Add to shortlist Link Permalink http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/08831157.2012.625910