"Die mythische Methode" : Komparatistische Studien zur Transformation der griechischen Tragödie im Drama der klassischen Moderne

Departing from Nietzsche's revolutionary reinterpretation of Greek civilization, the study analyzes the creative transformation of Greek tragedy, as the canonic model of Western theatre, by a wide range of European and American dramatists (Hofmannsthal, Jahnn, Hauptmann and Brecht; Cocteau, Gide, Giraudoux, Anouilh and Sartre; Jeffers, O'Neill, Eliot, among others). Detailed interpretations (juxtaposing modern versions, their Greek 'pre-texts' and 17/18th century variants) are intertwined with theoretical evaluations from an intertextual and cultural-historical perspective, to assess the possibility and meaning of tragedy within the realm of secular modernism.