Christa Wolf’s short novel Kassandra (1983) is perhaps the most important text of German literary feminism published during the 1980s. The English translation by Jan van Heurck, Cassandra (1984), appeared together with Wolf’s poetics lectures at the University of Frankfurt on her short novel, Voraussetzungen einer Erzählung: Kassandra [Conditions of a Narrative: Cassandra, 1983]. The combination of literary work and theoretical reflection, poetic earnestness and public success, points to the range of interpretations the novel has prompted. The monologue of the Trojan princess and priestess Kassandra in the moments before her death in Mycenae invites the readers to re

This article in full comprises 2427 words but only the first 150 or so words are available to non-members.

All our articles have been written recently by experts in their field, more than 95% of them university professors. To read about membership, please click here.

Published 21 January 2007

Citation: Stoehr, Ingo Roland. "Kassandra". The Literary Encyclopedia. 21 January 2007.
[http://www.litencyc.com/php/sworks.php?rec=true&UID=19523, accessed 9 February 2010.]