Women in German Yearbook: Feminist Studies in German Literature & Culture

This essay traces Wolf's uncoupling of the classical Cassandra figure from national allegiances. I argue that from a modern, psychological, and female perspective Wolf not only lays bare the politics of nationalism, she also imagines a different community, transnational in character. Returning to the cradle of Western civilization, Wolf rewrites the legend of the siege and destruction of Troy in order to refashion the national imagination of the past and to imagine a new community beyond the nation. (KE)