The paper examines the evolvement of the portrayal of Heracles in the works of Heiner Müller: in the drama “Heracles 5” (“Herakles 5”, 1964), the interlude “HERACLES 2, OR HYDRA” (“HERAKLES 2 ODER DIE HYDRA”, 1972), and in the poem “Heracles 13” (“Herakles 13”, 1991). Müller created the three texts in different periods of his practice, and the analysis of these texts shows that the problematisation of Herakles' subjectivity defines the modulation of his representation. Heracles experiences a kind of existential tragedy: he moves from the realisation of his dependency in the system of socioeconomic relations to almost complete loss of his identity and then to madness. Heiner Müller historicised the image of Heracles and put it in correlation with socio-political realities of his lifetime. This conclusion is particularly relevant to the analysis of the Heracles 5, the satire on both the capitalist and the socialist modes of production and social organisation, and “HERACLES 2 OR HYDRA”, the part of the “Cement”. These texts associate the figure of Heracles with
the embodiment of both the hero of socialist labour and the «new man» respectively.
Acknowledgments: the work was supported by RSF (project No. 23-28-00559 “Antique code and studies of Russian-German Theatrical Interconnections”)
For citation: Frolova A.S. The portrayal of Heracles in the writings of Heiner Müller, Ivanovo State University Bulletin, Series: Humanities, 2024, iss. 2, pp. 30—37.