Taking One’s Bow: Performing Things in Seamus Heaney’s The Cure at Troy
A version of Sophocles’ Philoctetes, Seamus Heaney’s A Cure at Troy explores the ways in which a bow, a mere thing, introduces and allows tragedy. From rag-and-bone man, Philoctetes thus becomes the main protagonist of a play that will guarantee a return to order. Meanwhile, the thing proliferates t...
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| Format: | Article |
| Language: | English |
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Presses Universitaires de la Méditerranée
2009-03-01
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| Series: | Études Britanniques Contemporaines |
| Online Access: | http://journals.openedition.org/ebc/5921 |
| Summary: | A version of Sophocles’ Philoctetes, Seamus Heaney’s A Cure at Troy explores the ways in which a bow, a mere thing, introduces and allows tragedy. From rag-and-bone man, Philoctetes thus becomes the main protagonist of a play that will guarantee a return to order. Meanwhile, the thing proliferates to such an extent that it becomes the only apt word in a language that loses all momentum, that fragments into inarticulateness. The thing, however, retrieves and restores meaning in passages where quiet gestures bring back on stage the vision of the world. |
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| ISSN: | 1168-4917 2271-5444 |