Elektra: Sophokles, Von Hofmannsthal, Strauss

Abstract

The Romantics usually placed originality at a high premium, downplaying or disguising wherever possible their debts of theme and form to previous literature. But in other periods the ideal of imitation, of re-creating for the new poet's own generation the essence of a great drama from the past, has been more highly regarded; and where the Greek tragedians are the source on which the more modern playwright draws, the results are always of interest, whether they be a deliberate narrowing from the scope of the original to a precise contemporary purpose such as Anouilh'sAntigone, or a complex reshaping like Racine'sPhèdre, which places the values of Louis XIV's France in a stimulating dialogue with the tragic vision of the Greeks.In this essay on the relationship between theElektraof Richard Strauss and that of Sophokles, the idea of dialogue is central. The relationship of Hofmannsthal'sElektrato Sophokles' has been treated by only a handful of writers; only one of these (Hans-Joachim Newiger) exhibits a knowledge of Greek and a familiarity with the range of twentieth century Sophoklean scholarship; and the relationship with Sophokles discussed in these works is always that of Hofmannsthal's play, never that of Strauss's opera.