New insights into literary topoi: a study of 'madness for guilt and remorse’

Authors

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.17398/2660-7301.45.193

Keywords:

topoi, madness for guilt, classical reception, classical literature

Abstract

The purpose of the present paper is to offer a new perspective towards the literary topoi, both in theory and practice, by elaborating on the definition of topos, as well as its similarities and differences from other literary concepts, such as motif, leitmotiv, or theme. By focusing on the topos of ‘madness for guilt and remorse’, we intend to apply our theoretical proposal to a close reading of literary texts. The evolution of this topos from Classical tradition to modern American drama will also be traced. The following texts will be examined: Euripides’s Orestes (408 BC), Vergil’s Aeneid (29-19 BC), Shakespeare’s Macbeth (1606), Nathaniel Hawthorne’s «Roger Malvin’s Burial» (1832) and Eugene O’Neill’s Mourning Becomes Electra (1931). It is argued that the presence of this topos in the aforementioned works follows in the footsteps of Euripides’s retelling of the myth of Orestes. The results of the study testify to the creative recurrence of this topos in Western literature.

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Author Biographies

  • Zahra Nazemi, Razi University (Iran) and Universidad de Cordoba

    Zahra Nazemi is a joint PhD candidate of English Literature and Language at Razi University (Kermanshah, Iran) and the University of Cordoba (Spain). Her fields of interest are comparative literature and modern American drama. She has published several articles in international journals.

  • Nasser Maleki, Razi University (Kermanshah, Iran)

    Nasser Maleki is an associate professor of English Literature at Razi University (Kermanshah, Iran). He has taught different courses of English literature for over 25 years, supervised many Master and PhD theses in this field and published numerous articles in international prestigious journals.

  • Gabriel Laguna Mariscal, Universidad de Cordoba

    Gabriel Laguna Mariscal is a professor of Latin Philology at the university of Cordoba. He has been a visiting scholar in Cornell, Harvard and Indiana universities, and a professor at the universities of Extremadura and Córdoba. His main fields of research are Classical Latin literature, Topicology and Classical reception. He has published several books and numerous articles in these areas.

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Published

2022-07-04

Issue

Vol. 45 (2022): Anuario de Estudios Filológicos

Section

Contributions

How to Cite

Nazemi, Zahra, Nasser Maleki, and Gabriel Laguna Mariscal. 2022. “New Insights into Literary Topoi: A Study of ’madness for Guilt and remorse’”. Anuario De Estudios Filológicos 45 (July): 193-210. https://doi.org/10.17398/2660-7301.45.193.