In Idomeneo, the love of women in the eighteenth century

In eighteenth-century Europe, the main literary works on the subject of Idomeneo were the stage play Idoménée from Crébillon, 1705 (ICr); Antoine Danchet's stage adaptation of Idoménée (composed by André Campra), 1712 (ICa); and Giambattista Varesco's adaptation Idomeneo, re di Creta ossia Ilia e Idamante (composed by Mozart), 1781 (IM).

Before discussing the three eighteenth-century plays of Idomeneo, I would like to state the premise that, in ancient Greece, although their conception of love differed from the Spartan one-way snatch, it belonged to the interaction of both men and women as much as modern love. relationship, but the unmarried daughter, as an important property of the family, has almost no chance to pursue love as freely as in the drama, and the princess who wants to pursue a foreigner even has to abandon everything (Medea). There is the possibility of pursuing free love as a woman as in the script. Therefore, under this premise, the time background of the interpreted plots in the three plays is not the time background of the play itself (after the Trojan War) but the time background of the creation of the play (the eighteenth century). This premise is actually not accepted by most people, but from the perspective of rationality, the literary creators of the Enlightenment era hardly possessed the ability to textualize the history of dynasties, and there were almost no comprehensive works in this regard at that time. Therefore, the repertoire was created according to the customs of ancient Greece, which I think is unreasonable.

The main conflicts of the three works of ICr, ICa, and IM all lie in the transaction between Idomeneo and the god, and the god fulfills his wish and fulfills the agreed price. The difference is that ICr and ICa have only this main line. As a closed ending, the conflict is completed by suicide in ICr, and the agreement is finally completed by God (authority) in ICa. And IM by another clue, Idamante and Ilia's love, opened the originally closed ending.

In ICr, Idamante confronts danger against sea monsters and insists on his love for Êrixène, more out of devoir (ICr, 1062), out of a desire to rebel against patriarchy (authority), out of mutual admiration and mutual love. responsibility.

In Ica, V, Idamante wants to break the deal between Idomeneo and the gods. This symbolizes rebellion against God (authority). The completion of the agreement, furthermore, symbolizes the absolute authority of God (religion). Idomeneo took himself as the sacrifice of the promise, and in the end, he wanted to use a compromise method to give up his power and love to make the promise come to an end. But God eventually drove him crazy and forced the agreement to be fulfilled.

In IM, V, "torna la pace", a happy ending, God did not fulfill the original agreement, but broke the agreement himself. This time, God proposed a compromise solution to satisfy Idamante and Ilia's love. God, who symbolizes authority, has weakened his own authority here, and has personified his own deity (anthropomorfismo). The sanctity of God (authority of religion) is exchanged for the humanity of love (the freedom to pursue love). In particular, to change the key factor of God's decision, Ilia is willing to replace her lover as a sacrifice for love. This behavior completes the love relationship. In fact, before Ilia's self-sacrifice brought any results, the act of self-sacrifice was itself a non-sacrificial act that violated the authority of sanctity. As for this kind of non-sacrificial behavior, I would like to discuss it in detail in another article in the future.

In fact, in the eighteenth century, most women's views on love have changed from the "sacredness" in the era of Louis XIV to the "sensuality" in the era of Louis XV. Society itself offers women the opportunity to actively pursue love or even just pure passion. Women as the main body to explore the nature of love make women's attitude towards love open, which means more possibilities in thinking. From women passively accepting fashion symbols from men, to women actively pursuing love, to women actively pursuing love out of their own passion, and even willing to give their lives for love. This process, from passive acceptance to active demand, has experienced the transformation of women as objects to subjects in the relationship between the sexes.

Moreover, what women pursue is not a single concept of "love", but love is only one of the "pursuable" things that women have broken out of the cocoon of medieval culture, and "love" is only one of them. reasonable node. It depends on the special nature that ancient Greek culture gave to love, which must be an interactive relationship. This means that men who pursue love must give women the same subject status and pursue love in a similar way to themselves.

And relying on the pursuit of love to extend to other pursuits, just as Ilia's devotion broke the agreement of authority, in the performance of the drama, in the expression that conforms to the audience's wishes, love is more beautiful than sacredness, and it is possible to choose the side of love in contradictions. Make the work a comedy. The result of this reckless pursuit of love (exchanging the sanctity of authority for love) is an extension of the pursuit of love itself. Authority allows women to pursue what is considered good by both parties, subject to themselves (with men, with authority itself). The expansion of this extension has made women gradually break away from the mainstream thinking dominated by men. Gradually pursue their own value, and even express their own value through writing.

Although not all women have the corresponding material conditions to support them in pursuing their own love or other things, but as a spark of thought, under the condition that society is willing to provide women with more possibilities, the form of thinking from a female perspective will become a great revolution. It is an important condition for women to fight for their own material interests in the legislation of citizenship.