Clytemnestra2.0019_Zabuzhko
"… the curtain's like burst crimson: when you step behind it,
With a single lordly gesture
Of my hand, steady with the cold, obedient metal,
I'll out-do everything you have accomplished,
I'll establish a new kingdom—
A world without Agamemnon."
Zabuzhko has crafted a gritty, graphic feminist vocalization of Clytemnestra’s mindset as she awaits Agamemnon’s ultimate arrival in their bedroom. Rather than placing the encounter on the steps in front of the House of Atreus, Zabuzhko locates Clytemnestra in an upper room, far inside the house.
The dramatic moment and outcome represent rather the other end of the narrative arc from W.B. Yeats' "Leda and the Swan" .
Born in 1960 and still active in Kiev, Zabuzhko articulates an important voice for Ukrainian women.
OGCMA slides are designed by Roger T. Macfarlane for use in Classical Civilization 241 courses at Brigham Young University.
The present resource contains information assembled for The Oxford Guide to Classical Mythology in the Arts, 1400 – 1990’s , edited by J. Davidson Reid (Oxford 1994), and it is used with express permission from Oxford University Press.
Address concerns or inquiries to macfarlane@byu.edu .