The Oresteia of Aeschylus

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Trousdell, Richard (2008). "Tragedy and Transformation: The Oresteia of Aeschylus". Jung Journal: Culture and Psyche. 2: 5–38. doi: 10.1525/jung.2008.2.3.5. S2CID 170372385. However, we can guess, with reasonable certainty, that it dramatized the adventures of Agamemnon’s brother Menelaus in Egypt, for two reasons. Firstly, in the second episode of Agamemnon, the Herald mentions specifically that he does not know whether or not Menelaus’ ship has survived; and secondly, in the fourth book of Homer’s Odyssey, we are informed that Menelaus ends up on the island of Pharos, the home of the “unerring old man of the sea, the immortal Proteus of Egypt.”

Jill Sharp on a new version of the Oresteia | The High Window

Smyth, H. W. (1930). Aeschylus: Agamemnon, Libation-Bearers, Eumenides, Fragments. Harvard University Press. p.455. ISBN 0-674-99161-3. Yale University Press: From The Earth, the Temple, and the Gods: Greek Sacred Architecture by Vincent Scully (New Haven and London, 1962). The Spaghetti Western The Forgotten Pistolero, is based on the myth and set in Mexico following the Second Mexican Empire. Ferdinando Baldi, who directed the film, was also a professor of classical literature who specialized in Greek tragedy. [33] [34] [35] [36]

The late W B. STANFORD was Senior Fellow of Trinity College Dublin and Regius Professor of Greek at Dublin University, where he became Chancellor. His several works include the acclaimed Ulysses Theme, definitive editions of Homer’s Odyssey, Sophocles’ Ajax and Aristophanes’ Frogs, Aeschylus in His Style, pioneering studies of metaphor and ambiguity in Greek poetry, and The Sound of Greek, Greek Tragedy and the Emotions, and with J.V. Luce, The Quest for Ulysses. Stanford served as representative of Dublin University in the Senate of the Irish Republic from 1948 to 1969 and as chairman of the Dublin Institute for Advanced Studies beginning in 1972. Orestes (Philebus) – the play's major protagonist, he is the brother of Electra and the son of Agamemnon. Once again set before the palace of Argos, the Libation Bearers starts where Agamemnon leaves off – only several years into the future. The second great female character in the Agamemnon is Cassandra, who seems, on her first entrance, to have a non-speaking role. In 458 BC, tragedians had only recently begun to use three actors rather than two, and Aeschylus brilliantly exploits the audience’s expectations to create surprise and confusion when the third actor, playing the foreign woman enslaved by Agamemnon, speaks. Still more surprising, the outsider turns out to know far more than any native-born Greek about the house of Argos – where, as she well knows, she will die alongside her captor. Queen Clytemnestra’s aggression, deceit and violence are counterbalanced by the insight and courage of Cassandra, who is blessed and cursed by Apollo with the gift of prophecy; she sets aside grieving for herself and her ruined city to step towards a death that will, as she also knows, bring down her killers.

Oresteia - An Introduction - Humanities LibreTexts 1.38: The Oresteia - An Introduction - Humanities LibreTexts

Bury, J. B.; Meiggs, Russell (1956). A history of Greece to the death of Alexander the Great, 3rd edition. Oxford: Oxford University Press. pp.347–348, 352. AeschylusA sense of anxiety is beautifully realised here. At the mercy of impulses both innate, and driven – by the god Apollo – Bernstein yields the fleeting suggestion of Hamlet, if only by definition of existential uncertainty. Apollo’s tribunal defence of Orestes against the Furies in the Areopagus is cravenly inconsistent but the judgement is never in doubt; Bernstein remains resolutely aware of the capriciousness of the entire pantheon of Greek gods, and of the subjection of the earthly players in a drama of bloody revenge. In 2002, Theatre Kingston mounted a production of The Oresteia and included a new reconstruction of Proteus based on the episode in The Odyssey and loosely arranged according to the structure of extant satyr plays. [ citation needed] Themes [ edit ] Justice through retaliation [ edit ]Years later, Sartre stated: "The real drama, the drama I should have liked to write, was that of the terrorist who, by ambushing Germans, becomes the instrument for the execution of fifty hostages." [3] Noted Sartre biographer Annie Cohen-Solal views this statement as an allusion to a series of events that occurred in occupied Paris in 1941: a German officer was killed at the Métro Barbès and in retaliation the German military forces executed eight prisoners in September and then 98 prisoners in October. [4] However, the German censors would have banned such a play, so Sartre was forced to look for other subjects. He settled on the idea of using the story of the Atridae as a vehicle. [5] De Beauvoir says that the first act was inspired by the town of Emborio, "the village on Santorin which had presented so sinister at atmosphere to us when we first reached it [during a holiday] -- all those blank, shuttered houses under the blazing noonday sun." [6] She also says that she, after reading a book about the Etruscans, informed Sartre about the Etruscans' funeral ceremonies, and he found inspiration in this for the second act. [7] Sartre's philosophy [ edit ] To the anthropologist Johann Jakob Bachofen ( Das Mutterrecht, 1861), the Oresteia shows Ancient Greece's transition from "hetaerism" ( polyamory) to monogamy; and from "mother-right" ( matriarchal lineage) to "father-right" ( patriarchal lineage). According to Bachofen, religious laws changed in this period: the Apollo and Athena of The Eumenides present the patriarchal view. The Furies contrast what they call "gods of new descent" with the view that matricide is more serious than the killing of men. With Athena acquitting Orestes, and the Furies working for the new gods, The Eumenides shows the newfound dominance of father-right over mother-right. [21] Composer Sergei Taneyev adapted the trilogy into his own operatic trilogy of the same name, which was premiered in 1895.

Oresteia - Wikipedia

a b Hester, D. A. (1981). "The Casting Vote". The American Journal of Philology. The Johns Hopkins University Press. 102 (3): 265–274. doi: 10.2307/294130. JSTOR 294130. Mourning Becomes Electra – a modernized version of the story by Eugene O'Neill, who shifts the action to the American Civil War French rapper D' de Kabal made his own adaptation of the Oresteia in his rap and hip hop play Agamemnon with the collective R.I.P.O.S.T.E. and the music and theatre artists Arnaud Churin and Emanuela Pace. [41]

The rhyme and half-rhyme, here and elsewhere, create a sense of an ornately poetic and claustrophobic dramatic world. However, that’s not the whole story, as we soon learn from Clytemnestra’s lover (and Agamemnon’s cousin) Aegisthus, who unexpectedly appears on stage. He is in on the murder plot as well, as a way to avenge his brothers, who had been not only slaughtered by Agamemnon’s father, Atreus, but also cooked and served as dinner to Aegisthus’ parent, Thyestes. The Argive Elders bemoan this sudden turn of events and warn that Agamemnon’s son, Orestes, will inevitably return to look for vengeance. Libation Bearers