Helen’s Eidola in nineteen-century European imagination

Dana Munteanu

Resumo


Abstract: Nineteen-century European culture reimagines Helen of Troy and her forbidden love with obsessive interest. Starting with her first appearance in the Iliad, Helen displays her beauty to reluctant yet mesmerized audiences. Over millennia, scenes depicting a Helen-like woman as the object of gaze, contradictory feelings, and judgment occupy crucial places in literary works. My essay will examine how the spoofy version of Helen in Offenbach’s La belle Hélène relates to two tragic reflections, heroines in the novels of Zola and Tolstoy, Nana and, respectively, Anna Karenina, who are both explicitly linked to the Trojan saga. The focus will be on the narrative accounts in which crowds look at the beautiful heroine, while deriding or condemning her.

Keywords: Helen in the Iliad 3; Offenbach’s La belle Hélène; Zola’s Nana; Tolstoy’s Anna Karenina; feminine beauty; male gaze; silenced voices of women.

Resumo: A cultura europeia do século XiX reimagina Helena de Troia e seu amor proibido com um interesse obsessivo. Começando com sua primeira aparência, na Ilíada, Helena mostra sua beleza para plateias relutantes, ainda que encantadas. Ao longo de milênios, cenas retratando uma mulher qual Helena como objeto do olhar, objeto de sentimentos contraditórios e de julgamento ocupam lugares cruciais em obras literárias. Meu ensaio examinará como a versão caricata de Helena em La belle Hélène, de Offenbach, se relaciona a duas imagens trágicas, as heroínas nos romances de Zola e Tolstói, Nana e Anna Karenina, respectivamente, ambas ligadas explicitamente à saga de Troia. O foco será nos relatos narrativos em que a multidão olha para a bela heroína, condenando-a ou ridicularizando-a.

Palavras-chave: Helena na Ilíada, III; La Belle Hélène, de Offenbach; Nana, de Zola; Anna Karenina, de Tolstói; beleza feminina; olhar masculino; vozes silenciadas das mulheres.


Palavras-chave


Helen in the Iliad 3; Offenbach’s La belle Hélène ; Zola’s Nana ; Tolstoy’s Anna Karenina ; feminine beauty; male gaze; silenced voices of women.

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Referências


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DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.17851/1983-3636.12.1.141-158

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Direitos autorais 2016 Dana Munteanu



Nuntius Antiquus
ISSN 2179-7064 (impressa) / ISSN 1983-3636 (eletrônica)

Licença Creative Commons
Esta obra está licenciada com uma Licença Creative Commons Atribuição 4.0 Internacional.