TY  - JOUR
A1  - Ungelenk, Johannes
T1  - Kiss me (not!), Cressida - or: the social touch of lips and tongue
T2  - Arcadia : international journal of literary culture
N2  - The article is dedicated to the problem of social bonds that is negotiated in Troilus and Cressida. Troilus and Ulysses embody an old, traditional order of the world that is out of joint, while Cressida's behaviour and her way of interacting indicate a different and new regime of social regulation that is about to take over. With its complex superposition of (touches of) love and war, Troilus and Cressida brings together rituals of touch, anarchic speech acts, and a gendered perspective on the world that associates touch and temporality with 'frail' femininity and temptation. With unrivalled intensity, the play puts to the spectator that the basic condition of touch, i.e. exposing oneself to another, entails an incalculable risk. Hector tragically falls for the vulnerability inherent in touch and the audience suffers with him because they share this existential precondition on which modern society is 'founded.' The gloomy, inescapable atmosphere of societal crisis that Troilus and Cressida creates emphasises the fact that the fragility of touch is not to be overcome. The fractions - no matter whether Greek, Trojan, or those of loving couples - cannot simply be reunited to form a new, authentic entity. Generating at least some form of social cohesion therefore remains a challenge.
KW  - Friedrich Nietzsche
KW  - Carl Schmitt
KW  - social cohesion
KW  - Troilus and
KW  - Cressida
KW  - touch
Y1  - 2022
UR  - https://publishup.uni-potsdam.de/frontdoor/index/index/docId/57435
SN  - 0003-7982
SN  - 1613-0642
VL  - 57
IS  - 1
SP  - 25
EP  - 46
PB  - De Gruyter
CY  - Berlin
ER  -