The Tragedy of Optimism: Kateb Yacine's Le cadavre encercle and Les ancetres redoublent de ferocite

Finburgh, Clare. 2005. The Tragedy of Optimism: Kateb Yacine's Le cadavre encercle and Les ancetres redoublent de ferocite. Research in African Literatures, 36(1), pp. 115-129. ISSN 0034-5210 [Article]

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Abstract or Description

This essay examines in detail Kateb Yacine's two tragedies, Le cadavre encerclé (1954) and Les ancêtres redoublent de férocité (1959), both of which treat Algeria's violent struggle for independence from France. I demonstrate how Kateb inflects classical tragedy's emphasis on eternal and universal suffering, with historicization and politicization. I locate Kateb's tragedies between Nietzsche's acceptance of suffering and death as the natural order of things, and Brecht's Marxist insistence on the unequivocal existential affirmation of life through understanding and enterprise. Kateb refashions the metropolitan model of ancient tragedy—both in its ideological content and in its stylistic form—with a modern political engagement. I propose that Kateb provides an exemplary dramatic template for the reflection of the complex tensions between suffering and optimism inherent in the struggle for social or political emancipation. I finally suggest that Kateb's transformation of tragedy affirms the autonomy not only of a new Algerian sovereign state, but also of his own unique anticolonial theater.

Item Type:

Article

Identification Number (DOI):

https://doi.org/10.1353/ral.2005.0163

Keywords:

Kateb Yacine, Le cadavre encercle, Les ancetres redoublent de ferocite

Departments, Centres and Research Units:

Theatre and Performance (TAP)

Dates:

DateEvent
March 2005Published

Item ID:

25399

Date Deposited:

21 Dec 2018 12:34

Last Modified:

21 Dec 2018 12:34

Peer Reviewed:

Yes, this version has been peer-reviewed.

URI:

https://research.gold.ac.uk/id/eprint/25399

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