“I want to break humanity into two parts and live in the emptiness left in the middle”. A feminist reading of Heiner Müller’s “Medea” pentalogy

Abstract

This paper is about the mythical figure of Medea in the works of german writer Heiner Müller, in the framework of the reconfiguration of different myths from Classical Antiquity. We read the appearance of Medea in Müller’s work as part of a pentalogy, since to the best-known work, the triptych Verkommenes Ufer Medeamaterial Landschaft mit Argonauten (1982), two previous fragments are added, “Medeakommentar” (1972) and “Medeaspiel” (1974). The figure of Medea (as well as other women in the classical tradition) was resignified during the seventies to review from feminist positions the place of women in patriarchal society. We are interested in analyzing these appearances in the framework of a post-dramatic theater. Likewise, Müller’s reconfiguration of the myth of Medea can be thought of within the framework of a series of re-readings / rewrites that from extemporaneous perspectives recover voices silenced, made invisible or exterminated by the hetero-patriarchal canon.