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Article: Electra after Freud: Myth and Culture.(Book review)
- Article from:
- College Literature
- Article date:
- September 22, 2007
- Author:
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 2007 West Chester University. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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Scott, Jill. Electra after Freud: Myth and Culture. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2005. $39.95 h.c. 224 pp.
Certainly, to say that the myth of Oedipus is well-known in the Western world is an understatement: in fact, students in the U.S. encounter it in high school English classes as well as in university psychology and literature courses. In Electra after Freud, author Jill Scott knows she need not explain it in any detail and spends more time summarizing the sister myth of Electra. She questions whether Oedipus can claim predominance over Electra and her myth "as a central trope" in modern literature (2), and she tracks her influence in twentieth century ...