Il ritorno di Edipo in The Road from Colonus. E.M. Forster e la riscrittura del classico

Abstract

In the early twentieth-century, technological development was inflicting a sense of fear and pain upon the citizens of the new world. And, with a heavy heart, E.M. Forster began thinking that the way men treated one another was perhaps no longer tolerable. In those days, people were only capable of experiencing non-constructive feelings of selfishness and egotism, because all they were interested in was wealth, power and the latest news from the scientists. So what had happened to love? And to the disinterested relations between people, between lovers, and between parents and children? Humanity had changed deep down, and it was the changes brought about by modernity which were behind the sense of defeat implicit in the writer’s vision. This is why in the tale The Road from Colonus, by questioning himself and the society around him, Forster brings back to life a classic of Greek literature – Oedipus at Colonus – and decides to rewrite the story. If, in ancient times, Oedipus was a free man even in suffering, thanks to the affection of his loved ones, happiness in the twentieth-century became a gravel path which was impossible to follow. As a matter of fact, Forster experiences progress not as a positive opportunity, but as an ontological phenomenon to be avoided in every possible way. In this sense, The Road from Colonus, written in 1904 after Forster’s trip to Greece, should be read as a litmus test that highlights the dark and unsentimental way people were beginning to live. Without neglecting the notable theories on rewriting of Michael Riffaterre and Linda Hutcheon, my article – which starts from a plot description and adopts a comparative approach – aims to analyse the Forsterian short story and tries to explain where and why the English tale differs from the Sophoclean hypotext.