Sul desiderio di riconoscimento L’Alcesti di Marguerite Yourcenar

Abstract

The article examines Marguerite Yourcenar’s reinterpretation of the Alcestis myth in Le Mystère d’Alceste, connecting it to Euripides’ original drama and Judith Butler’s theory of the “desire for recognition.” Starting from feminist readings of Euripides—which highlight the tension between female sacrifice and patriarchal power—the essay shows how Yourcenar transforms the heroine into a self-aware, defiant woman who rejects the submissive role assigned to her. In this version, Alcestis’ death is not an act of love but the expression of deep resentment and the consequence of a lack of recognition within a male-dominated order. Yourcenar’s reworking shifts the focus from the code of sacrifice to that of desire, turning the myth into a reflection on autonomy, gender, and subject formation. Drawing on Butler’s concepts, the article interprets Alcestis’ story as a dramatization of how the longing for recognition simultaneously constitutes and constrains the subject. Yourcenar’s Alcestis thus becomes a symbol of resistance to normative gender structures and a figure of reappropriation of voice and desire, embodying the critical potential of “undoing gender” through self-expression and refusal of imposed identities.