Reclaiming Klytemnestra: Revenge or Reconciliation

Komar, Kathleen L. Reclaiming Klytemnestra: Revenge or Reconciliation. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2003. 224pp. $34.95 hardcover. In Reclaiming Kathleen Komar examines late twentieth-century revisionist myth making associated with of House of Atreus, classical figure notoriously blamed and slain by her offspring in an act of violent matricide. Komar strives to unveil attempts to reinstate archetypes in literary and mythic landscape, thus making cultural change possible, and in so doing her study queries manner in which contemporary authors from Germany, Italy, Canada, and United States rethink why they are committed to doing so, and how they deal with violence enacted both upon and by women (2). Komar's study aligns itself with significant works of feminist criticism such as julia Kristeva's Hethique de l'amour (1977), Alicia Ostriker's Thieves of Language: Women Poetsand Revisionist Mythmaking (1985), and Judith Butler's Antigone's Claiin (2000). The main text is divided into four chapters and presents status of myth in historical context. In first chapter, Komar traces and compares various characteristics of the mythical Klytemnestra, given in classical texts by Homer, Stesichorus, Aeschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides. This leads to her conclusion classical versions of myth highlight that a critical founding moment for Western culture hinges on subjugation of in service of a new patriarchal order (49-50). Turning her attention to Klytemnestra in pre- and early 1980s, Komar traces contemporary interpretations of mythical character in Martha Graham's ballet Clytemnestra, and in two novels, one by Christa Reinig (Entmannung), other Nancy Bogen's Who Stayed at Home. This chapter also includes close readings of Dacia Maraini's play I sogni di Clitennestra, and a monologue authored by Christine Bruckner entitled Bist du nun glucklich, toter Agamemnon? These texts suggest striking thematic similarities in they not only view marriage as limiting women's choices, but they also lament lack of women's control over their bodies. Some of more radical narratives highlight castration and other violent acts as inescapable, twentieth-century scenarios. Close readings of Christa Wolf's Kassandra, Marie Cardinal's Le fasse empiete, Severine Auffret's Nous, Cletemnestre, and an analysis of collaborative work by Judith Piper and Nancy Tuana entitled The Fabulous Furies reVue form basis of third chapter. …

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