Home >> The Modern Language Review, Volume 104, Number 2

Gender, Laughter, and the Desecration of Enlightenment: Kleist's Penthesilea as `Hundekomödie'

Author: Griffiths, Elystan

Source: The Modern Language Review, Volume 104, Number 2, 1 April 2009 , pp. 453-471(19)

Publisher: Modern Humanities Research Association

Buy & download fulltext article:

OR

Price: $21.27 plus tax (Refund Policy)

Abstract:

The article reads Kleist's play Penthesilea (1808) against the nexus of discourses of Enlightenment and gender. It proposes that the Greeks represent views that Kleist had espoused in his youth, but that these are not only the target of some comedy, but are shown to cause ongoing detriment to the Amazon state. The play is interpreted as an attack upon both Enlightenment rationalism and the humanist impulses of Weimar Classicism. This attack entails a reassessment of language as a medium of human communication and historical progress, which is expressed both in and through the language of the play.

Keywords: Kleist; Penthesilea; Enlightenment; gender; rationalism; Weimar Classicism; language

Document Type: Research article

Affiliations: 1: University of Birmingham

Publication date: 2009-04-01

More about this publication?
  • The Modern Language Review, the flagship journal of the Association, is available to all individual members as part of their subscription. MLR is one of the oldest journals in its field, maintaining an unbroken publication record since its foundation in 1905, and publishing more than 3,000 articles and 20,000 book reviews.

    Each volume consists of four issues, published in January, April, July and October of each year. Its 1000+ annual pages are divided roughly equally between articles, predominantly on medieval and modern literature in the languages of Europe, and over 500 reviews of books in these areas. All contributions are in English, and each section is edited by a noted scholar in the field, under the overall supervision of the General Editor. Articles are chosen not only for their scholarly worth and originality but also, as far as possible, for their potential interest to a wider readership in other disciplines.
Related content
Marked list

Tools

Key

Free Content
Free content
New Content
New content
Open Access Content
Open access content
Subscribed Content
Subscribed content
Free Trial Content
Free trial content

Text size:

A | A | A | A
^ Back to top
Share this item with others: These icons link to social bookmarking sites where readers can share and discover new web pages. print icon Print this page