Open AccessTHE SCHEME OF POTIPHAR’S WIFE: FROM CLASSICAL TRADITION TO EUGENE O’NEILL.
Author(s) -
Nasser Maleki,
Zahra Nazemi,
Gabriel Laguna Mariscal
Publication year - 2020
Publication title -
revista de estudios norteamericanos
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.101
H-Index - 1
eISSN - 2253-8410
pISSN - 1133-309X
DOI - 10.12795/ren.2020.i24.06
Subject(s) - topos theory , wife , context (archaeology) , literature , recreation , history , art , philosophy , theology , law , archaeology , political science
The aim of the present paper is to introduce a literary topos called the scheme of Potiphar’s wife, its development in literary history and its recreation in Eugene O’Neill’s Desire Under the Elms (1924). Taking into consideration the three requirements established by Laguna Mariscal for a literary topos (content, literary form, and historical development), the evolution of this topos in The Egyptian Tale of Two Brothers, the biblical Book of Genesis, Homer’s Iliad, Ovid’s Metamorphoses, Euripides’s Hippolytus, Seneca’s Phaedra and O’Neill’s Desire Under the Elms is surveyed. It is argued that the story of Potiphar’s wife is part of a long-standing topos that has been developed through the literary history. The recreation of this topos in O’Neill’s play, as one permutation of this topos, while evoking several Classical sources, especially the Hippolytus by Euripides, is at the same time a creative adaptation, aimed to match the historical context of twentieth century America.