On top of all this, the book reads as slow as molasses dripping from the bottom of the bottle, and it's hard to recall what you just read a few pages ago and does not lend itself to the put-down/pick back up again reading method. Her encounter with Cassandra began as she begins to read Aeschylus’s ‘Oresteia’ upon waiting for her flight to Greece at Berlin Schoenefeld airport. Home » Germany » Christa Wolf » Kassandra (Cassandra). When she predicts the future her friends and family treat her as nothing more than a babbling and a raving mad woman. The story is incredible and moving and is a perfe. Although Wolf's archaeological understanding of myth and the problems this raises remain unchanged, the focus has shifted from the … To see what your friends thought of this book, Cassandra is most famous in Greek mythology for possessing the gift of prophecy but this unique gift came with one problem: no one ever believes her true predictions. Get this from a library! Christa Wolf’s Cassandra Background: Wolf published Cassandra in 1983, one of the tensest years of the Cold War. I'm less impressed with the narrative, which is nowhere near as good as Medea. Start by marking “Cassandra: A Novel and Four Essays” as Want to Read: Error rating book. Max Planck Institute for Comparative Public Law & International Law (MPIL) Research Paper No. Wolf's story of Cassandra draws on several different veins of the Troy myth as well as references the Cold War. Cassandra is most famous in Greek mythology for possessing the gift of prophecy but this unique gift came with one problem: no one ever believes her true predictions. I'm not the biggest lover of historical fiction, especially going this far back in time, and although I admired Wolf's writing and her feminist, antiwar message here, Greek mythology isn't something that I'm likely to return to any time soon. die Vergessenen voneinander wissen. My oh my. Cassandra: A Novel and Four Essays by Christa Wolf, translated by Jan Van Heurck, presents the fall of Troy and its aftermath through the first-person point of view of Cassandra, a daughter of Priam and Hecuba, the king and queen of Troy. also had no idea the eighties felt so apocalyptic. The rest, as they say.... After Troy has been sacked, we learn from Aeschylus's The Oresteia that Cassandra's taken by Agamemnon back to Argos as part of his spoils from the war. Christa Wolf: Kassandra (Cassandra) Wolf’s novel is a retelling of the story of Cassandra, the daughter of King Priam of Troy and his wife, Hecuba, who was granted the gift of prophecy by Apollo because of her beauty but, when she would not return his love, he spat in her mouth, which resulted in no-one believing her prophecies. Last Reviewed on June 19, 2019, by eNotes Editorial. the part i really enjoyed (n was here for in the first place) was the 'novel': cassandra's monologue in her final living hours, reflecting on her life / the war in troy. ?Christa Wolf, Voraussetzungen einer Erz?hlung: Kassandra Forgotten people know about each other. But as I'd never read anything on the subject before, I just thought, what the heck, give it a go. male propaganda, but Christa Wolf intends her rea ders to r ecognise, through the . As an avid reader, writer, and fan of all things... To see what your friends thought of this book. While I admit the book is an interesting look and study on the re-imagining of a character, as a piece of fiction it fails in many ways. Kassandra beruht auf der Geschichte der trojanischen Königstocher, von der Aischylos in der Orestie berichtet. Kassandra is een roman uit 1983 van de Duitse schrijfster Christa Wolf.De roman gaat over de Trojaanse Oorlog geschreven vanuit het perspectief van de mythologische figuur Cassandra.. Volgens Wolf is het idee voor Kassandra per toeval ontstaan, tijdens een reis naar Griekenland.Wolf woonde destijds in de Duitse Democratische Republiek en had als een van de weinige DDR-auteurs de … Yes, it's confusing for the first 30 pages or so but as the puzzle pieces start to slide together, you'll quickly see that it's definitely worth it. She finds herself spending time in the forest in a kind of utopian/feminist/egalitarian community where people have created a space between all of the killing and dying. As a citizen of East Germany and a committed socialist, Christa Wolf managed to keep a critical distance from the communist regime. In Aeschylus’s Agamemnon, Cassandra says that she agreed to have sex with the God Apollo in exchange for the gift of prophecy, but when she went back on her promise and refused the Sun God’s advances, Apollo made sure that her prophecies would never be believed. Skipped the essays, I’m sure they’re great, but personally, I don’t need, nor want to read the genesis of how the story came about. Refresh and try again. When she predicts the future her friends and family treat her as nothi. Can there be spoilers in a book about a Woman who could see the future but was never believed? Cassandra. Novelist, short-story writer, essayist, critic, journalist, and film dramatist Christa Wolf was a citizen of East Germany and a committed socialist, and managed to keep a critical distance from the communist regime. We’d love your help. Konflikte mit Machthabern Kassandra sieht wirklichen Verhältnisse der Gegenwart → Kerker Veränderung von Kassandra→ Unabhängigkeit Männer zu mächtig → keine Durchsetzung mehr möglich griechischer Mythos aus Antike um 1200 v. Chr. she deals with issues of allegiances / truth / speaking truth to power that is probably not too far from wolf's historical context and maybe that's why wolf fell for her so fast. Phenomenally speaks on themes of privilege, complicity, and the police state that resonate very strongly today, in addition to giving a unique and female twist to the mythology. Kassandra by Christa Wolf, Christa Wolf, C. Wolf, 1984, Farrar, Straus, Giroux edition, in English At the same time, it’s fascinating to read the certainty with which Wolf asserts an irreconcilable double-Germany less than a decade before the collapse of The Wall. So many thought-provoking sentences and passages - will definitely reread this one. Reviews. There is a definite feminist slant to the retelling and I liked the emphasis on the lives of those left behind and those sacrificed in the name of the great "heroes" but the book didn't altogether work for me, mainly due to the style of writing, I think. Kerine Wint is a software engineering graduate with more love for books than for computers. “I had gone back to being myself. In this telling, Cassandra transforms from a privileged and unaware royal daughter to rebellious witness who refuses to go along with the false rhetoric of war that her own family is perpetrating. What she gives us as answer is this book made up of a historical novel and 4 essays about the character and her aspects as woman and myth. I'm not the biggest lover of historical fiction, especially going this far back in time, and although I admired Wolf's writing and her feminist, antiwar message here, Greek mythology isn't something that I'm likely to return to any time soon. This was a lesson plan I developed for Christa Wolf's novella Cassandra, which I was tasked with teaching during a graduate course on Greek Tragedy and its Legacy. It is told in a stream-of-consciousness style as Cassandra is held prisoner in Mycenae and she pieces together what has happened in the lead up to the fall of Troy. In 1980 East German author Christa Wolf took a trip to Greece accompanied by her husband, Gerhard. What she gives us as answer is this book made up of a historical novel and 4 essays about the character and her aspects as woman and myth. A good bit of the tension of the Troy legend exists in her predicting that Paris's abduction of Helen will result in the destruction of Troy. Goodreads helps you keep track of books you want to read. Word Count: 269. Fascinated she pursued Fascinated she pursued Cassandra, the daughter of the Trojan King Priam and his wife Hecuba, a priestess who had to sacrifice her virginity and who could foresee the future but whose foretelling nobody would believe. i love her. Written as a result of the author's Greek travels and studies, Published This work deals with the well known story of the Trojan War but through the first person viewpoint of Cassandra, the most famous of the Trojan royal family's many daughters, who was doomed to prophecy the fall of the city but to never be believed. Welcome back. While the narrative style of the novel is not my favorite style, the story does eventually become engrossing. ?Cassandra, Cassandra da? Complete summary of Christa Wolf's The Quest for Christa T.. eNotes plot summaries cover all the significant action of The Quest for Christa T.. Free shipping for many products! During a trip to Greece with her husband in the early 1980s, Christa Wolf (1929-2011) began reading Aeschylus The Oresteia during a flight delay. In 1980, the distinguished East German writer Christa Wolf took a trip to Greece along with her husband, Gerhard. As we know, the Iliad calls her the loveliest daughter of Priam, king of Troy. Christa Wolf deconstructs and reconstructs the Cassandra myth in a work which combines novel, travel writing, lectures and letters to a friend. I have a distinct memory of first translating the Agamemnon and how difficult Aeschylus’s Greek is to unpack. This text is an imaginative repositioning of the classical tragic figure Cassandra. Kupte knihu Kassandra (Christa Wolf) s 15 % slevou za 241 Kč v ověřeném obchodě. I read, skimmed, and skipped ahead, so a page number is difficult to identify. A priestess of Apollo, she asks the god for the gift of prophecy, which he grants, but when she refuses his advances he punishes her by ordaining that her prophecies won't be bel. End of World War II (1945)-- use of… another one i largely abandoned during the quarter and didn't finish until now—essays were better than the novel because the novel is all ideas, & the ideas are more compellingly and urgently expressed in the essays. So I'm leaving this unfinished. She wrote in her accompanying essay, “Before Cassandra opens her mouth we have learned: The war against Troy is over.” And furthermore, “Whose side is Aeschylus on, really?”. The essays attempt to give a reader an insight into the author's working process, but these fail too for much the same reason: they don't necessarily show the reader how the author developed her novella, and also have no definitive structure in the writing. Translation of: Kassandra and Voraussetzungen einer Erzählung Cassandra -- Conditions of a narrative : Cassandra. Christa Wolf hüpft in den Zeiten umher aber das macht nichts, denn so fügt sich die Geschichte langsam zusammen und es passt auch, da Kassandra ja kurz vorm Sterben ist und sich nochmals an alles erinnert, was sie erlebt hat. Her best-known novels included “Der geteilte Himmel” (“Divided Heaven,” 1963), addressing the divisions of Germany, and “Kassandra” (“Cassandra,” 1983), which depicted the Trojan War. Several months ago I finished reading the novella in this collection and I wrote a review. User-contributed reviews "Cassandra" is a re-imagining of the Trojan War, as recounted by King Priam's daughter, Cassandra, a priestess whose destiny is to be able to predict the future, but never to be believed. The four accompanying pieces describe the novel's genesis. The brief novel is accompanied by four essays that show the author traveling to Greece to do research, then returning to East Berlin to mull over what a woman's voice should say to a male-centric civilization hell bent on destruction, regardless of whether anyone listens. A … In the time since I have read the essays, though that has taken a good deal of time. This is so difficult to get through, and I have the balls to say that it's the writer's fault for not writing it well. The novel tells this old story through Cassandra. Christa Wolf tells us this book began with a question: Who was Cassandra before anyone wrote about her? The way the the author depicts the madness and visions did not help. In the process she explores women's relationship to the ‘Word'—that is, to language in general, and to the religious myths and histories which have defined women and their place in society. Less easy than Medea, I had to struggle with a dense prose and a unchronologic and sometimes eerie narrative. ?Kassandra, Kassandra The 1992 German documentary film, The Black Box (T. Trampe and J. Feindt), as of now the only film to explore the operations and legacy of the Stasi, the notori In 1982 she was awarded a guest lectureship at the University of Frankfurt, where in May she delivered a series of five "Lectures on Poetics" relating to her Greek travels and studies. Travel report, about the accidental surfacing and gradual fabrication of a literary personage ; 2. From a Women's Studies point-of-view, this novel has a multitude of well-known female 'characters' from Greek mythology and Wolf has many new takes on what are considered the core facts of these myths. With music streaming on Deezer you can discover more than 56 million tracks, create your own playlists, and share your favourite tracks with your friends. I see merit in fragmented scenes and stream-of-consciousness writing, but had this not been required of me to read, I would've burnt it. Abstract: Novel retells the story of the fall of Troy from Cassandra's point of view. Novelist, short-story writer, essayist, critic, journalist, and film dramatist Christa Wolf was a citizen of East Germany and a committed socialist, and managed to keep a critical distance from the communist regime.