Peter Shaffer's Triad: Myth, Conflict, and Identity

Abstract

Peter Shaffer’s plays—The Royal Hunt of the Sun (1964), Equus (1973), and Amadeus (1980)—interrogate the dialectical tension between myth and reality, revealing myth as both a psychological necessity and an ideological construct. Through archetypal conflicts (Pizarro’s nihilistic conquest, Dysart’s therapeutic violence, Salieri’s theological envy), Shaffer stages modernity’s existential crisis: the human need for transcendent narratives in a disenchanted world. Drawing on hermeneutic, semiotic, and existential theory, this essay argues that Shaffer’s drama mobilises myth not as escapism but as a “necessary fiction” (Blumenberg, 1985): a scaffold for identity and meaning that ultimately fractures under its own contradictions. Theatrical devices (ritualised horse gods, Mozart’s divine music, Inca sun ceremonies) perform this tension, implicating audiences in the paradox of belief. While The Royal Hunt of the Sun dramatises myth’s death under colonialism, Equus pathologises its survival in madness, and Amadeus exposes its commodification in art. Shaffer’s unresolved dialectic resonates with contemporary struggles, including the erosion of shared truths, the sacralisation of identity, and the therapeutic displacement of the sacred. Ultimately, his theatre becomes a secular sanctuary where myth is both enacted and mourned, offering no resolution but a crucible for collective reckoning. Across these plays, Shaffer mobilises myth to generate conflict and, in turn, to fracture modern identity.