Ricerc@Sapienza

The article applies the concept of polysemy to the text of Euripides’ Trojan Women, whose words are interpreted not only as bearers of content and of stylistic features, but also as signals and traces of opsis and gesture. In the Trojan Women, the atrocities of war find their visual counterpart in Hecuba’s body, which is present on stage throughout the play. The absence of entrances and exits on her part is in itself a vessel of dramaturgical meaning, as are all of her on-stage movements: falling down and lying on the ground, being lifted back on her feet, beating her head and clawing her cheeks. Her presence and her actions are those of a breathing corpse, a woman deprived of her loved ones, of her status and of her very identity, who hopelessly contemplates the total annihilation of her world.