Cassandra
by Christa Wolf
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At a glance:
- Author: Christa Wolf
- First Published: 1983
- Type of Work: Novel and essays
- Type of Plot: Social criticism
- Time of Work: The Trojan War (around 1200 )
- Setting: Troy, ancient Mycenae, East Germany, and modern Greece
- Characters: Cassandra, Aeneas, Anchises, Priam, Hecuba, Arisbe, Achilles, Agamemnon, Christa Wolf
- Genres: Long fiction, Psychological fiction, Social realism, Historical fiction, Essays, Alternate history, War fiction, Novel
- Subjects: History, Mythology or myths, Sexism, Violence, Feminism, Women's issues, War, Kings, queens, or royalty, Kidnapping, Heroes or heroism, Prophecy or prophets, Greek or Roman times, Utopias, Greece or Greek people, Trojan War
- Locales: Europe, Greece, Athens, Greece, Greece, ancient, Crete, Troy, ancient, Mycenae, ancient
Form and Content
In 1982, East German author Christa Wolf agreed to deliver a series of lectures on poetics at Frankfurt University. She surprised her audience by presenting not the expected scholarly analysis of poetics, but rather a series of four talks including two “Travel Reports,” “A Work Diary,” and a “Letter,” which explain how she became interested in the figure of Cassandra. Her fifth “lecture” was the narrative Cassandra itself. This refusal to play by the expected academic rules shows Wolf’s attempt to break the boundaries of literary...
(The entire page is 2526 words.)
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