The Experience of Melancholy in “Domestic Comedies” by Hanoch Levin

• Authors: Magdalena Figzał
• Conference: 4th International Interdisciplinary Memory Conference “Memory, Melancholy and Nostalgia” (17-18 Semptember, 2015 in Gdansk)
• Languages of publication: EN

Abstracts

EN

The article attempts to depict the experience of melancholy in family dramas by an Israeli playwright Hanoch Levin. With regard to their themes Levin’s domestic comedies can be divided into dramas of ‘lonely hearts’, ‘family relationships’, and ‘neighborhood’. What is common to these three groups of dramas is the gallery of the same personae – melancholy men: depressed, detached subjects, deprived of any possibility of symbolization. Firstly, melancholy appears to be a general condition of the depicted world; secondly, it is deeply related to the inner dramas of personae of the drama – their embodiment and their perception of the world. The condition of male and female characters in Levin’s domestic comedies is determined by the longing for the past and the sadness of passive existence. The basic purpose of the article is to provide an analysis of the selected issues in the context of psychoanalytical readings of melancholy, especially Sigmund Freud’s as well Julia Kristeva’s works. This perspective allows to elucidate the melancholic condition of dramatis personae, and also to describe some complicated relationships between them (especially the relation between mother-figure and the son).

Keywords

EN

Hanoch Levin; melancholy; Israeli drama; domestic comedy

• Publisher: Wydział Filologiczny Uniwersytetu Gdańskiego
• Journal: Jednak Książki. Gdańskie Czasopismo Humanistyczne
• Year: 2018
• Issue: 9 "Memory, Melancholy and Nostalgia"
• Pages: 67-78

Contributors

author

Magdalena Figzał

• University of Silesia in Katowice (Poland), Department of Theatre and Drama

References

• Burton Robert. 2001. The Anatomy of Melancholy. New York: New York Review Books.
• Freud Sigmund. 1957. Mourning and Melancholia, 243–258. In: Strachey James, ed. & trans. The Standard Edition of the Complete Psychological Works of Sigmund Freud. London: Hogarth Press.
• Kristeva Julia. 1987. “On the Melancholic Imaginary”. New Formations (3): 5–18.
• Kristeva Julia. 1989. Black Sun: Depression and Melancholia. Roudiez Leon S., trans. New York: Columbia University Press.
• Levin Hanoch. 2009a. Krum. Poniedziałek Jacek, trans. In: Ja i Ty i następna wojna. Teatr życia i śmierci, 175–241. Warszawa: Agencja Dramatu i teatru „ADiT”. Kraków: Wydawnictwo Austeria.
• Levin Hanoch. 2009b. Pakujemy manatki. Poniedziałek Jacek, trans. In: Ja i Ty i następna wojna. Teatr życia i śmierci, 443–502. Warszawa: Agencja Dramatu i teatru „ADiT”. Kraków: Wydawnictwo Austeria.
• Levin Hanoch. 2009c. Sprzedawcy gumek. Olek Agnieszka, trans. In: Ja i Ty i następna wojna. Teatr życia i śmierci, 243–316. Warszawa: Agencja Dramatu i teatru „ADiT”. Kraków: Wydawnictwo Austeria.
• Levin Hanoch. 2009d. Jakobi i Leidental. Sobelman Michał, trans. In: Ja i Ty i następna wojna. Teatr życia i śmierci, 55–103. Warszawa: Agencja Dramatu i teatru „ADiT”. Kraków: Wydawnictwo Austeria.
• Levy Shimon. 2003. Daring to Compare: Samuel Beckett and Hanoch Levin, 61–68. In: Ben-Zvi Linda, ed. Drawing on Beckett: Portraits, Performances, and Cultural Contexts. Tel Aviv: Tel Aviv University.
• Olek Agnieszka. 2009. Śmieszna baśń przez łzy – o spotkaniu z teatrem i dramatem Hanocha Levina, 4–48. In: Levin Hanoch. Ja i Ty i następna wojna. Teatr życia i śmierci. Warszawa: Agencja Dramatu i teatru „ADiT”. Kraków: Wydawnictwo Austeria.
• Rokem Freddie. 2003, Introduction, IX–XXXIII. In: Levin Hanoch. The Labor of Life: Selected Plays. Harshav Barbara, trans. Stanford, California: Stanford University Press.
• Yaari Nurit. 1996. Life as a Lost Battle: The Theater of Hanoch Levin, 151–171. In: Ben-Zvi Linda, ed. Theater in Israel. Michigan: The University of Michigan Press.

Identifiers

DOI

https://doi.org/10.26881/jk.2018.9.06