TY - JOUR T1 - Orpheus and Eurydice Revisited: Grief and Grieving in Zinnie Harris’ Meet Me at Dawn AU - Aygan, Tuğba PY - 2023 DA - July DO - 10.26650/LITERA2022-1198703 JF - Litera: Journal of Language, Literature and Culture Studies JO - Litera PB - İstanbul Üniversitesi WT - DergiPark SN - 2602-2117 SP - 53 EP - 69 VL - 33 IS - 1 LA - en AB - First immortalised by Virgil in his fourth Georgic (ca. 39-30 BC), the myth of Orpheus and Eurydice has captured the imaginations of artists for centuries. Conditioned by the age in which they were produced, many songs, plays, poems, and operas have been composed to honour this tragic love story. Among others, British playwright Zinnie Harris, in her 2017 play Meet Me at Dawn, draws her inspiration from this legendary love story. Defying the gender politics of the myth and the time, Harris reframes the characters in a more modern context and constructs both Orpheus and Eurydice as women. Whilst questioning what one would do if they were given another chance to be reunited with a beloved one who died suddenly, the play further explores the themes of bereavement, grief, and grieving by using the mythological love story as an allegorical scaffold. Drawing on Freud’s model of bereavement and the KüblerRoss grief cycle, this paper reflects on the embodiment of grief and grieving in the aftermath of a loss as manifested in Meet Me at Dawn arguing that it provides an exegesis of the validity of this particular model. KW - Meet Me at Dawn KW - Orpheus and Eurydice KW - bereavement KW - grieving KW - KüblerRoss grief cycle CR - Becker, E. (1997). The denial of death. New York: The Free Press. google scholar CR - Bowra, C. M. (1952). Orpheus and Eurydice. The Classical Quarterly, 2(3/4), 113-126. google scholar CR - Byock, I. (2013). Foreword. In On death and dying (pp. xi-xv). New York: Scribner. google scholar CR - Freud, S. (1953). Mourning and melancholia. In Ernest Jones (Ed.) Collected papers Vol. IV (pp. 152-170). London: Hogarth Press. google scholar CR - Freud, S. (1957). Thoughts for the times on war and death (Trans. J. Strachey). In On the history of psycho-analytic movement, papers on metapsychology and other works XIV (1914-1916) (pp. 275-301). London: Hogarth Press. google scholar CR - Friedman, J. B. (1970). Orpheus in the Middle Ages. Cambridge: Harvard University Press. google scholar CR - Harris, Z. (2017). Meet me at dawn. London: Faber&Faber. Retrieved from http://dx.doi.org/10.5040/9780571347339.00000003 google scholar CR - Karadağ, Ö. (2022). Rewriting women and trauma: Zinnie Harris’s This Restless House. Tiyatro Eleştirmenliği ve Dramaturji Bölümü Dergisi, 34, 19-3. google scholar CR - Kessler, D. (2000). Finding meaning: The sixth stage of grief. New York: Scribner. google scholar CR - Kübler-Ross, E. (1969). On death and dying. New York: Macmillan. google scholar CR - Kübler-Ross, E. & Kessler, D. (2005). On grief and grieving: Finding the meaning of grief through the five stages of loss. New York: Scribner. google scholar CR - Segal, C. (1972). Ovid’s Orpheus and Augustan ideology. Transactions and Proceedings of the American Philological Association, 103, 473-494. google scholar CR - Segal, C. (1989). Orpheus: The myth of the poet. Baltimore: JHUP. google scholar CR - Shriver, M. (2014). Foreword. In On grief and grieving (pp. xi-xvi). New York: Scribner. google scholar CR - Stroebe, M. & Schut, H. (1999). The dual process model of coping with bereavement: Rationale and description. Death Studies, 23(3), 197-224. google scholar CR - Swain, M. (15, Oct. 2019). Guest blog: Playwright Zinnie Harris on Meet me at dawn. Broadway World. Retrieved from https://www.broadwayworld.com/westend/article/Guest-Blog-Playwright-Zinnie-Harris-On-MEET-ME-AT-DAWN-20191015 google scholar CR - Thomas, D. (2003). Dylan Thomas selected poems 1934-1952. New York: New Directions. google scholar CR - Virgil. The Georgics. Retrieved from https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999. 02.0058%3Abook%3D4%3Acard%3D494 google scholar CR - Worden, J. W. (2009). Grief counselling and grief therapy: A handbook for the mental health practitioner. New York: Springer. google scholar UR - https://doi.org/10.26650/LITERA2022-1198703 L1 - http://dergipark.org.tr/tr/download/article-file/2748156 ER -