„Wstrzymajcie konie Feba”. Kilka pytań na temat "Protesilasa i Laodamii" Wyspiańskiego
‘Hold Phoebe’s horses’. Some questions about 'Protesilas and Laodamia'

Author(s): Elżbieta Wesołowska
Subject(s): Studies of Literature, Polish Literature, 19th Century, Theory of Literature
Published by: Wydawnictwa Uniwersytetu Warszawskiego
Keywords: Wyspiański; Protesilas and Laodamia; drama; ancient tradition; eroticism
Summary/Abstract: The article analyses selected elements of Stanisław Wyspiański’s drama 'Protesilas and Laodamia' (1899), especially from the point of view of its relation to ancient tradition, including the author’s transformations of the ancient myth (which is known primarily from Letter XIII of Ovid’s 'Heroides'). The author of the essay reflects on such issues as: the forms of the names used by the poet (Protesilas instead of Protesilaos, Protesilaus; Laodamia instead of Laodameja); the silence of one of the two main and title characters of the drama; the operation of the motif of the envious or cruel lord of the hereafter; the man’s desire for fame (the precedence of death) and the question of the lover’s fidelity or unfaithfulness; the motif of trying to embrace the phantom of the beloved dead with his arms; the motif of Sleep (Dream) and Death as brothers (sons of the same goddess of the Night, in Greek: Nyks); the motif of the lengthening of the night of love. The author argues against the opinions according to which there is no eroticism in Wyspiański’s dramas; she emphasises that the drama in question is saturated with eroticism. Wyspiański’s monumental mythological figures have the tenderness and potency of the deepest and most human feelings.

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