Alcestes and Her Sisters: Feminism, Sorority and Tragedy in Yourcenar and Simone’s Alcestes

This article examines the uses of tragedy for exploring the position of women in two adaptations of the Alcestes myth. The article begins with an analysis of Simone de Beauvoir’s use of tragedy (particularly in Le deuxième sexe), and contextualizes her thinking on the tragic within her contemporaries’ analyses of tragedy and tragic myths. This analysis provides the background for interpretations of plays by Madame Simone (Pauline Porché) and Marguerite Yourcenar. Reading Simone and Yourcenar’s Alcestes adaptations in terms of the reception history of the tragic heroine, the paper shows that these plays explore notions of sorority and female agency in tragic myth to suggest a new pre-history for understanding the complex and under-theorized relationships between tragedy and French feminism.