THE DRAMATIC PORTRAYAL OF SEMIRAMIS IN VIRUES, CALDERON AND VOLTAIRE.
Item
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Title
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THE DRAMATIC PORTRAYAL OF SEMIRAMIS IN VIRUES, CALDERON AND VOLTAIRE.
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Identifier
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AAI8515623
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identifier
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8515623
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Creator
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ESTEVES, CARMEN C.
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Date
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1985
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Language
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English
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Publisher
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City University of New York.
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Subject
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Literature, Comparative
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Abstract
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The fascinating legend of the powerful, ambitious, beautiful and lustful queen of Babylonia, Semiramis, has captured the Western imagination for centuries. This is a study of the Semiramis legend as portrayed by three important playwrights: Virues, Calderon and Voltaire.;Diodorus Siculus in his History narrated the most complete account of her legend. Other writers such as Plinius, Justinus and Valerius Maximus mainly repeated Diodorus' account and added some details.;As with many other legends, the Semiramis legend owes most of its elements to a religious background, and possibly to an actual historical figure, the Assyrian queen Sammu-ramat, who reigned from approximately 824 to 810. Although there is no agreement that the historical Sammu-ramat and the fictional Semiramis were identical, all the experts concur that there is a mythical-religious background to the Semiramis legend, which is basically the narration of Ishtar, the Assyro-Babylonian goddess of fertility.;Virues' tragic play, La gran Sem(')iramis, was the first dramatic version of the legend. In his portrayal he incorporated all the main elements that appeared in Diodorus--ambition, lust, incest and a glorious and efficient reign. However, he modified them in order to represent her ambition as a desire for fame and through it immortality, thus imbuing her with his concerns as a Renaissance man.;For his play, La hija del aire, Calderon selected ambition, intelligence and beauty as the essence of her personality. He emphasized three tragic flaws: failure to imagine any limitations on her ambition, inability to conceive of her downfall, and lack of realization of the consequences of the rivalry between Diana and Venus, which results in Diana's taking vengeance upon her.;Of the three playwrights, Voltaire's portrayal varied the most from the legend. His play centered on her remorse for having taken part in her husband's death and her punishment by the gods for this crime.;The polyvalence of her legend has given playwrights a freedom to adapt her persona to the changing tastes of audiences of different times and cultures.
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Type
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dissertation
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Source
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PQT Legacy CUNY.xlsx
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degree
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Ph.D.
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Program
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Comparative Literature
