Mythopoetic Aspects in the Plays of Elena Isaeva
- Authors: Xing W.1, Mikhaylova M.V.1,2
-
Affiliations:
- Lomonosov Moscow State University
- A.M. Gorky Institute of World Literature of the Russian Academy of Sciences
- Issue: Vol 84, No 6 (2025)
- Pages: 36-48
- Section: Articles
- URL: https://journals.rcsi.science/1605-7880/article/view/364572
- DOI: https://doi.org/10.7868/S2413771525060054
- ID: 364572
Open Access
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Abstract
This article analyzes the mythopoetic dimensions of the plays by Elena Isaeva (born 1966): “David and Bathsheba”, “Judith”, and “The Two Wives of Paris”. Additionally, the text of the play titled “Nonplay for Two” is used as auxiliary material. A stepbystep analysis reveals the trajectory of the playwright’s myth making strategy: from close reproduction of mythological plots, through the retention of a mythological framework enriched with original concepts, to a syncretic synthesis of heterogeneous mythological traditions. Notably, the play “The Two Wives of Paris” illustrates both the reception and transformation of the mythopoetics of Innokenty F. Annensky and Euripides. In Isaeva’s artistic treatment, the themes of love and ethics undergo a substantive conceptualization, articulating her perspective on pressing sociocultural issues of the present. The methodology combines hermeneutic analysis with historicalliterary, intertextual, and crosscultural approaches, thereby enabling the reconstruction of the playwright’s ethicalaesthetic program. The study concludes that Isaeva’s model of mythologization may be described as a neoromantic attempt to overcome social alienation through the reinterpretation of archetypal meanings.
About the authors
Wei Xing
Lomonosov Moscow State University
Email: xingwxw@163.com
ORCID iD: 0009-0000-1229-4622
Postgraduate Student 1 Leninskie Gory, Moscow, 119991, Russia
Maria V. Mikhaylova
Lomonosov Moscow State University; A.M. Gorky Institute of World Literature of the Russian Academy of Sciences
Email: mary1701@mail.ru
ORCID iD: 0000-0001-8193-6588
Doc. Sci. (Philol.), Professor, Senior Researcher 1 Leninskie Gory, Moscow, 119991, Russia; 25a Povarskaya Str., Moscow, 121069, Russia
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