RECONFIGURATIONS CONTEMPORAINES DU MYTHE DE MÉDÉE CHEZ PASCAL QUIGNARD ET CHRISTA WOLF
CONTEMPORARY REWRITINGS OF THE MYTH OF MEDEA. PASCAL QUIGNARD AND CHRISTA WOLF

Summary/Abstract: Pascal Quignard is one of the most representative “antimodern” contemporary French authors, for his speculative and fictional work gives space and voice to various personalities forgotten by History, and focuses on bygone periods of our civilisation. One of Quignard’s fields of predilection is Greek and Roman Antiquity. The literary work of Christa Wolf, a contemporary German writer, is visibly interested in rewriting classical myths. The rewriting of Medea’s myth is the meeting point with Pascal Quignard’s literary work. The author of this study intends to point out the multiple interpretations of the mythical figure represented by Medea, as they are developed in Quignard’s essayLe sexe et l’effroi (Sex and Terror, 1994) and in the eponymous play, published in 2013, as well as in Christa Wolf’s novel entitled Medea. Stimmen (Medea. Voices, 1996).Firstly, the study of Pascal Quignard’s aforementioned texts will allow us to discuss one important aspect of his literary personality, namely the intersemiotic dialogue established between Letters and Arts, through the analysis of the ekphrastic description of one Pompeian fresco representing Medea and her children moments before the infanticide, as well as the collaboration with the choreographer and butô dancer Carlotta Ikeda for the play Medea.Secondly, we intend to demonstrate that Christa Wolf’s approach of the myth is an oblique strategy of expressing her political and social reflection on the German Democratic Republic, whose struggling citizen she has been for most of her life.

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