JOURNAL ARTICLE

The Tragic Hero: Der Held.

  • Published In: Diacritics, 2024, v. 52, n. 4. P. 46 1 of 3

  • Database: Academic Search Ultimate 2 of 3

  • Authored By: Zupančič, Alenka 3 of 3

Abstract

This essay reconsiders the distinction between tragic heroes and tragic heroines through Walter Benjamin's account of fate, guilt, and speechlessness. Reading Sophocles' Oedipus and Antigone , Aeschylus' Agamemnon , and Euripides' Medea , it argues that male heroes articulate the tragic dimension through the nexus of desire and guilt, while female figures like Antigone and Medea enact a refusal of the "forced choice" that binds desire to guilt. Their acts mark a different ontology of the tragic—one in which desire and negation coincide. In contrast to the heroes' loss, heroines embody the point where desire itself appears as the sign, and embodiment, of a lack of being. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Additional Information

  • Source:Diacritics. 2024/10, Vol. 52, Issue 4, p46
  • Document Type:Article
  • Subject Area:Literature and Writing
  • Publication Date:2024
  • ISSN:0300-7162
  • DOI:10.1353/dia.2024.a979355
  • Accession Number:191148831
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