Konstantinos P. Nikoloutsos

Helen’s semiotic body: ancient and modern representations

Abstract: The paper draws on theoretical work on the representation of the female body as an object of the male gaze in modern narrative, in order to decode and analyze Helen’s portrayal as a physical vacuum in ancient literature. I argue that the negation of Helen’s corporeality emphasizes the semiotic duality of her body, allowing it to be deployed both as a sign and as a site for the inscription of signs. The paper, then, proceeds to show how Helen’s Iliadic depiction has provided the eighteenth-century philosopher Edmund Burke with a rhetorical platform upon which to theorize the aesthetic dichotomy between the beautiful and the sublime. I close my analysis by illustrating how the eclecticism, compromises, and pastiches that inform Helen’s cinematic recreations find a parallel in, and thus perpetuate, ancient pictorial techniques. Keywords: Helen; Iliad ; Edmund Burke; female body and male gaze; Homer on film. Resumo : Este artigo baseia-se em um trabalho teorico sobre a representacao do corpo feminino como um objeto do olhar masculino na narrativa moderna, a fim de decodificar e analisar o retrato de Helena como um vacuo fisico na literatura antiga. Defendo que a negacao da corporalidade de Helena enfatiza a dualidade semiotica de seu corpo, permitindo que este seja apresentado tanto como um signo quanto como um lugar para a inscricao de signos. O artigo, entao, mostra, na sequencia, como a representacao de Helena na Iliada proporcionou ao filosofo Edmund Burke, do seculo XViii, uma plataforma retorica sobre a qual teorizar a dicotomia estetica entre o belo e o sublime. Encerro minha analise ilustrando como os ecletismos, concessoes e pastiches que configuram as recriacoes cinematograficas de Helena encontram um paralelo com tecnicas pictoricas antigas e assim as perpetuam. Palavras-chave : Helena; Iliada ; Edmund Burke; corpo feminino e olhar masculino; Homero no cinema.

Seneca in Cuba: Gender, Race, and the Revolution in José Triana's Medea en el espejo

This article places renewed emphasis on the gender and racial dynamics in José Trianas Medea en el espejo (Medea in the Mirror; Havana, 1960) by examining its relationship to Lucius Annaeus Senecas Medea, a major source of inspiration for the Cuban dramatist that has been overlooked in contemporary scholarship. It demonstrates that Triana appropriates the image of Medea as a vengeful witch from the Roman text and accordingly constructs a heroine oscillating between antithetical subject positions: man and woman, master and slave, self and other. Situating the play in its sociopolitical context, the article argues that the indeterminacy of Trianas heroine, a mulata named María, for artistic and cultural reasons, is symptomatic of Cubas liminal position and the collapse of hierarchical distinctions with the advent of the revolution in 1959, a temporal border that marked the beginning of a new era and caused the blurring of social boundaries. Triana, I conclude, revisits the myth of Medea and uses it as a vehicle for raising questions about the abuse of power and the continuous suppression of black agency under Castro.