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This paper about theater fiction tries to enlighten the problem of the figurative representation of forces of evil. Incidentally we notice that some very actual productions are based on dramas from the 16th century transgressing the period and updating the figures of violence. On this way, assistance is leaded ‟behind the mirror“ and required to ask herself what is representing evil in our world? To try to understand the mechanism or a part of it we have chosen three figures of contemporary stage as example. The first is La Furie, from Jean Virey du Gravier's tragedy La Machabée (1596) and staging in 1985. This figure without any reality is only visible from the assistance but she manipulates all the figures of the play. Her nonexistence let her possibility to say truth. The second is a muted figure in Wolfgang Mitterer's opera Massacre (2003) witch is based on Marlowe tragedy Massacre à Paris (1596). She is mixing the old age and the new one and show explicitly the concordance amongst stages on which the character of the 16th century are performing and Iraqi's war video. The last one is Ariel in Thomas Adès' opera The tempest (2004) based on Shakespeare's eponym play (1611). This character has no representation as la Furie. Ariel is also fiction witch mixed evilness and goodness, an avatar of the two previous characters. In the present case Evil is shown as the will of Prospero who wants have revenge. Ades insist on the total obedience of Ariel, who brings out his incoherencies. Obviously, origin of evilness is not in the mind of the executor but in the contract that bind him to another force: jealousy of Duke of Milan who takes off Prospero from his throne because he was not an action man. These characters make a bridge between the Renaissance and now a day and show how permanent is the question of evil. The man hopes through civilization get rid off from aggressiveness but he hasn't found yet how to struggle against evil. Through the parallelism between the both historic period, the writers and composers are going on to explore the question finding this composite material as inspiring today as it was in old time. They put on the stage same violence and same blinding of the human being, let us know that we haven't progress in treatment of evil. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores the role of Troy in the space-time continuum of Jean Racine's (1639-1699) two most widely known, secular tragedies ‟Iphigenia“ (1667) and ‟Andromache“ (1674). The tragic space-time continuum and its effect on the image of Troy is analysed according to the theory of operative devices. Stéphane Lojkine adapted this theory to the analysis of the space created by fictional texts. In the first section, the paper gives a brief overview of the history of the theory of operative devices and the principles and primary concepts involved, then describes the space-time of Racine's tragedy as an operative device, which functions because the tensions created between the different zones and levels of space-time are mediated on a scopic level (i.e. the character's viewpoints). The second section takes a closer look at how the images of the Trojan War that are created shift and change within these zones, depending on whether the events of war take place in the present or the future vis-à-vis the events of the tragedy. In ‟Andromache“, Troy has already been destroyed. One of the Greek commanders, King Pyrrhus, is driven by sentimentality and wishes to restore it ‟within the walls“ of his kingdom. However, in ‟Iphigenia“, the characters are only just making preparations for war and their main desire is to be free of the curse of the gods that has rendered the waterway leading under the walls of Troy impenetrable. The male protagonists of both tragedies wish to bring Troy into their own, present space-time continuum. The conflicts in both tragedies revolve around a character who is the ‟key“ to Troy: in ‟Andromache“, it is Astyanax, the son of Hector, the dead king of Troy, and in ‟Iphigenia“, it is the main character's double, Eriphyle, the daughter of beautiful Helen and Theseus. The delusional city in ‟Andromache“ materializes when Pyrrhus places the crown on Andromaque's head, thereby ensuring Astyanax's survival. In ‟Iphigenia“, Eriphyle's suicide in the last scene of the tragedy makes the illusive Troy accessible by lifting the curse and thereby opening the waterway. As the action continues, Troy moves through both space and time: it moves from the far-away, off-stage space into the on-stage space; from imaginary fiction into reality; from the past or future into the present. And, yet, death lurks within the walls of Troy and Troy demands that there be death, which makes it both dangerous and fascinating at the same time. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Violence and tragedy are inseparable. Like myths, the bases for most tragic storylines, antique tragedies also depict innumerable murders, sacrifices, suicides, etc. This paper focuses on how death is depicted in Aeschylus's tragedy ‟Agamemnon“ in order to examine how the tragedy portrays violent death. The paper further explores the ritual markers of murder, dying as a boundary-crossing process and the different attitudes towards and beliefs about death and the dead found in the tragedy. Despite a lack of any kind of written source or comment on the conventions of depicting death in antique Greek tragedies, we know that, whether it was in the interest of credibility or for some other reason, portraying death and violent events on stage was avoided. Blood baths and murders were not shown physically on stage, but were rather conveyed verbally using various narrative means (a messenger's or the choir's text, a character's account, etc.). Many different explanations have been given for these conventions of depicting death, such as the limited number of actors in Greek theatre, religious taboos, ethical beliefs, technical limitations on stage, as well as dramatic reasons. Since the act of murder isn't shown on stage, a study of the representation of violent death can only analyse the way that murder is described in the text. In the tragedy ‟Agamemnon“, one must distinguish between the deaths that occurred in the past, before the actions that take place on stage, such as Iphigenia and the warriors who fought in Troy (as recounted by the choir), and those that take place during the play, i.e. the murders of Agamemnon and Cassandra. If we take a closer look at these two murders, the disproportionate amount of attention given to them stands out. Agamemnon dies three times for the public: first in Cassandra's prophetic vision (1100-1130), which she presents to the choir, then his ‟real“ death behind closed doors (1343-1345), and, finally, a third time in Clytemnestra's victorious recounting of the blood bath (1380-1395). Whereas Cassandra's death is but briefly mentioned in Clytemnestra's account (1440-1448). In the threefold presentation of Agamemnon's murder, all categories of time are powerfully combined -- the future, the present and the past. Cassandra's prophetic view of the future describes in explicit detail, though metaphorically, the fate about to befall Agamemnon. Clytemnestra's retrospective description of the murder is cold-blooded and precise. But both help to create a vivid image of the terrible event for the viewer by the end of the play. Poetic suggestiveness and layers of description (direct and metaphorical) give the otherwise dramatically wan murder scene the dimensions of a larger event. Cassandra's and Clytemnestra's descriptions of the murder evoke a sense of ecstasy and ritual. Agamemnon's murder gives symbolic weight to many objects, conferring upon them a deeper, ritual meaning in the tragedy. These objects include the bath and robe/trap that Clytemnestra uses during the murder ritual, but also the blood spilled so violently as a libational sacrifice to the gods. The central images in the murder scenes, the references to an altar and comparing the dying to a sacrificed animal, all allude to Greek sacrifice customs. Agamemnon's death can thus be seen as a metaphoric rite of sacrifice. Such ‟sacral violence“ isn't ritual per se, but it essentially imitates cult practices. The victim's journey from the world of the living into the reality of the dead can be seen as a transition ritual and the dying as a liminal process. In the context of Juri Lotman's cultural semiotics and his theory of boundaries, the opposition between ‟in“ and ‟out“ allows death to be placed on the life/afterlife, seen/unseen, known/unknown axes. The spatial structure of the tragedy ‟Agamemnon“ is also a spatial model of the universe (according to Greek cosmology). Space in the tragedy's text is organized according to concepts of ‟in“ and ‟out“ and, on the vertical axis, ‟above“ and ‟below“, wherein the synonyms for ‟in“ are ‟closeness“ and ‟belonging“ and for ‟out“ are ‟distance“ and ‟the unknown“. With death, there is movement from ‟in“ to ‟out“ and from ‟above“ to ‟below“ and, with these concepts, come the binary oppositions of ‟day“ and ‟night“ and ‟light“ and ‟darkness“. Day and daylight symbolize life but death is darkness and the ‟setting of life“ (1120-1225). Thus, Hades is depicted as an obscure, hopeless place. The clear outlines given to death in the tragedy as well as the depiction of Hades are in line with the general religious traditions of fifth century Greece. Death was feared and it elicited emotions of horror and negativity. Though it wasn't possible to return to the land of the living, death wasn't considered to be the end of existence, merely its continuation in the next actuality, where new rules applied. In conclusion, violent death as an aspect of society is depicted in this tragedy mainly in descriptions of the horrors of war and the story of Iphigenia's sacrifice. However, the personal horror of death emerges in the depiction of the familial blood feud and the descriptions of Agamemnon's murder. ‟Agamemnon“ contains little reference to the Greek underworld and beliefs about death. The tragedy mostly focuses on the ways of, and reasons for, leaving life and gives a detailed description of violent death. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]