Patrilineage and Transgenerational Trauma in Yeats’s "Purgatory" (1939)

This paper offers a novel dramaturgical reading of Yeats’s 1939 verse play Purgatory to explore the representation of patrilineage from the point of view of transgenerational trauma. In psychological studies, there is a growing body of evidence attesting to the fact that trauma experienced by an ind...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Author: Zsuzsanna Balázs
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: Firenze University Press 2024-08-01
Series:Studi Irlandesi
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Online Access:https://oajournals.fupress.net/index.php/bsfm-sijis/article/view/15383
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Summary:This paper offers a novel dramaturgical reading of Yeats’s 1939 verse play Purgatory to explore the representation of patrilineage from the point of view of transgenerational trauma. In psychological studies, there is a growing body of evidence attesting to the fact that trauma experienced by an individual can significantly affect their children and even grandchildren, although these generations have not had a first-had experience of the initial trauma. This paper, therefore, not only offers a close dramaturgical reading of Yeats’s Purgatory in light of patrilineage, but it also employs cultural trauma theory and some aspects of clinical trauma studies as a new frame of reference to gain a more thorough and topical understanding of what Yeats’s drama has to offer to contemporary audiences.
ISSN:2239-3978