G. Hauptmann’s Dialogue with Antiquity. Late Drama ‘Iphigenie in Delphi’

Abstract

The article is devoted to the problem of perception of the antique epoch by the late Hauptmann, which not only reveals in Hauptmann’s dramas a deeper sense of tragedy than that typical of his early works but also clarifies the writer’s personality, the creative process of his development as a writer, which involved reinterpretation of previous creations, their perception as a personal tradition to be reviewed and updated. The article aims to reveal the peculiar features of Hauptmann’s philosophical dialogue with antiquity in his later years; to reveal the character of the playwright’s philosophical self-reflection; to substantiate the principles of the writer’s personal mythology; to conceptualize his new mythopoetic imagery; to show the importance of chthonic primacy for Hauptmann by the example of the drama Iphigenie in Delphi. The analysis found that, while maintaining the same view on antiquity from the standpoint of total spiritualization, the playwright is engaged in a dialogue with the ancient era in which the main theme is the theme of immortality, underlying his subjective myth-making. It, being associated with the ancient subterranean forces of primeval awareness, which were considered by Hauptmann as the immortal foundations of all things, contributes to the revision of the principle of ancient mysteries – movement toward the light from the darkness. Hauptmann creates his own myth, the content of which is the exit from the light and the descent into darkness, which means for him a return to the roots – to the chthonic roots. They, being the beginning of all existence, are called on, from the dramatist’s point of view, to contribute to the new birth of the world and man. It was found that under the late Hauptmann’s pen, the world picture, presented in the context of the poetic metaphor of the sunset, changed dramatically. The change in the mythological imagery, when the life of a sunny day is transformed into the life of a moonlit night, follows logically from Hauptmann’s reflections about the invigorating mystery of natural mysticism and constitutes the essence of the new religion that is most fully revealed in the drama Iphigenie in Delphi. Agamemnon’s daughter, returning to the palaces of Hecate and Persephone, not only feels the need for her own overthrow but also perceives it as a kind of new revival of her own personality, lost before subjectivity. The attempt to find peace of mind in the light of day brings only suffering, while the entrance into darkness becomes for Iphigenie the supreme good, the obtaining of that very immortality the reflections on which permeate Hauptmann’s writings of the late period.