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    STUDIA DRAMATICA - Issue no. 2 / 2012  
         
  Article:   POLARITY AND METAMORPHOSIS IN ELFRIEDE JELINEK’S FAUSTIN AND AUT / POLARITÉ ET MÉTAMORPHOSES DANS FAUSTIN AND AUT D’ELFRIEDE JELINEK.

Authors:  DELPHINE KLEIN. 		 
       
         
  Abstract:  Polarity and Metamorphosis in Elfriede Jelinek’s FaustIn and Out. Elfriede Jelinek’s play FaustIn and out was written in 2010 as a rewriting of Goethe’s Faust wherein the author establishes a surprising parallel between Gretchen’s drama and the very real tragedy of Elisabeth Fritzl, whose fate dominated the judicial chronicles in 2008. We will analyse the stakes of this contemporary re-exploration of a classic, throwing a light on Jelinek’s attempts to raise awareness of this ruined womanhood in the collective imagination; the author places the crime and its denial in the wake of a certain ideology, which is embodied by Faust. We comprehend the rewriting process as a modern take on three concepts that are fundamental to Goethe’s mind, namely the question of the original phenomena, polarity and metamorphosis. By calling it a “secondary drama”, a new genre by which playwrights infer that their play can neither be performed nor even exist without the “original” text, Jelinek practically instates polarity as programmatic to her work. Deconstructive games bring surprising metamorphosis to Goethe’s text and give Jelinek the opportunity to question once again the notions of knowledge, happiness and evil in historical terms, as well as bringing those taboos to the surface which are typical of a very Austrian amnesia.

Cuvinte-cheie: Elfriede Jelinek, Goethe, Faust, rewriting, polarity, metamorphosis, deconstruction. 		 
         
     
         
         
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