Overview

In 17th-century Europe, a new kind of subjectivity formed. Perversely, the new private subject made its most spectacular appearance on the public stage; an appearance that also marked the emergence of absolutism in Europe. What these two phenomena had to do with one another, and how they were elaborated in the theatre of the 17th century, is the subject of this work. In particular, it shows how the Oedipus myth, reinterpreted on various stages at the end of the Renaissance, served the purposes of the emerging culture by replaying the founding moment of absolute rule. Working with models of genealogical criticism, psychoanalysis, and a certain continental feminism, Greenberg reads plays by Shakespeare, Lope de Vega, Calderun, Corneille and Racine to show how, as symptomatic texts staged within the confines of familial scenarios, they combine the dynamics of politics with a conflicting private desire shown to be inimical to the dominant ideology. This analysis reveals how scenarios of sacrifice and transcendence are brought into play to normalize and naturalize inchoate and threatening forces of social change, by appealing to pre-existing cultural models such as the myth of Oedipus. An integration of texts from political theory, psychoanalysis, history and literature, this work offers a strong interpretation of the interrelated representation of subjectivity and absolutism on the 17th-century stage.

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