The challenge of myth : Heiner Müller's "Philoctetes"

• In this paper, myth and work on myth is understood as work on reflective discourse. At a certain point of history, mythological configurations figure the dark side, the inherent ‘wound’ of their contemporary reflective discourse. This hypothesis is examined in a reading of Heiner Müller's arrangement of the myth of Philoctetes. Here, the impossibility to re-integrate the excluded Philoctetes into the Greek society corresponds to the aporia of modern (post) Kantian enlightenment, that is, to the problem of how the self-enlightening subject can create a difference to itself under the presupposition of the self. Thus, Müller's work on myth does not serve one of the two opposing 20th century ideologies, but critically explores the epistemic basis of those ideologies.                      

Nyckelord

HUMANITIES and RELIGION

HUMANIORA och RELIGIONSVETENSKAP

German

tyska

Publikations- och innehållstyp

vet (ämneskategori)

art (ämneskategori)