Autore: Beltrametti, Anna
Titolo: Elena, chiunque tu sia. La bellezza, il desiderio, l’illusione, il conflitto
Periodico: Estetica
Anno: 2025 - Fascicolo: 1 - Pagina iniziale: 51 - Pagina finale: 67

This study begins with Hecuba’s enigmatic prayer to Zeus at the start of the third episode of Euripides’ "Trojan Women", on the eve of her confrontation with Helene. Who is Zeus? A necessity of nature, or a mental construct (νοῦς βροτῶν, v. 886), an image shaped by human minds? And who is Helene, who traverses Greek poetry and thought, both aesthetic and political, only to reappear in modernity? To the elderly Trojan notables of the "Teichoskopia" ("Iliad" 3.154-165), Helene appears «like a goddess», a divine epiphany imagined rather than experienced. In Aeschylus’ "Oresteia", she becomes a figure of danger, seductive and destructive. In Euripides’ theater and in Plato’s "Republic", she is the εἴδωλον, the simulacrum, and ultimately a kitsch icon that replaces beauty. Who is Helene for Camus, Seferis, Ritsos? A woman or an idea? A person, or Greece itself? An object of desire, or a projection of our desires and fears? And what links the beautiful Helene to Alcibiades, the most beautiful man in history?




SICI: 2039-6635(2025)1<51:ECTSLB>2.0.ZU;2-V
Testo completo: https://www.rivisteweb.it/download/article/10.14648/118573
Testo completo alternativo: https://www.rivisteweb.it/doi/10.14648/118573

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