Read complete books and articles on: The Oresteia

Aeschylus - ĕsˈkĭləs, ēsˈ–, 525–456 b.c., Athenian tragic dramatist, b. Eleusis. The first of the three great Greek writers of tragedy, Aeschylus was the predecessor of Sophocles and Euripides.

Aeschylus fought at Marathon and at Salamis. In 476 b.c. he went to Sicily to live at the court of Hiero I, and he died at Gela. He wrote perhaps 90

Aeschylus fought at Marathon and at Salamis. In 476 b.c. he went to Sicily to live at the court of Hiero I, and he died at Gela. He wrote perhaps 90 plays (7 survive in full) and won 13 first prizes at the Greater Dionysia, the spring dramatic festival in which each dramatist submitted four connected plays—a tragic trilogy and a lighter satyr play.

Achievements and Characteristics

Prior to Aeschylus, tragedy had been a dramatically limited dialogue between a chorus and one actor. Aeschylus added an actor, who often took more than one part, thus allowing for dramatic conflict. He also introduced costumes, stage decoration, and supernumeraries. In addition, Aeschylus also appeared in his own plays.

In the sophisticated theology of his tragedies, human transgressions are punished by divine power, and humans learn from this suffering, so that it serves a positive, moral purpose. At their best, his choral lyrics are rivals of the odes of Pindar. The choruses, more important in Aeschylus than in his successors, both comment on the action as well as present it. Vivid in its character portrayal, majestic in its tone, and captivating in its lyricism, Aeschylus' tragic poetry is esteemed among the greatest of all time. He alone of Greek tragedians was honored at Athens by having his plays performed repeatedly after his death.

The Plays

The extant plays of Aeschylus are hard to date. The earliest is probably The Suppliants, simple in plot (concerning the 50 daughters of Danaüs) and with only one actor besides the chorus. The Persians (472? b.c.), glorifying the Athenian victory over Persia at Salamis, has two actors, but the new form is still unpolished. The Seven against Thebes can be dated to 467. Prometheus Bound (see Prometheus), of uncertain date, is striking for its bald attack on the vengefulness of the gods toward man, but the later two parts of its trilogy, which are lost, may have portrayed Zeus as just.

The last three tragedies of Aeschylus compose the only extant ancient trilogy, called the Oresteia, a history of the House of Atreus, with which the poet won first prize in 458. The three plays are Agamemnon, The Choëphoroe (The Libation Bearers), and The Eumenides; in each play three actors are used—an innovation borrowed from Sophocles. Because of its scope, complexity, and the profundity of its themes (the significance of human suffering and the true meaning of justice), the Oresteia as a whole is considered by many to be the greatest Attic tragedy. Browning's Agamemnon is a poetic translation of the first play, and Eugene O'Neill's Mourning Becomes Electra is an American reworking of the trilogy. The translation by David Grene and Richmond Lattimore in The Complete Greek Tragedies is one of many English translations of his plays.

Bibliography

See studies by G. Murray (1940), M. H. McCall, ed. (1972), T. G. Rosenmeyer (1982), R. P. Winnington-Ingram (1983), and J. Herington (1986).

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11 of the Best Books and Articles on: The Oresteia

as selected by Questia librarians

1.

The Oresteia » Read Now
by Peter Burian, Alan Shapiro. 285 pgs.

Collections: Literature, Entire Library

The Oresteia by Aeschylus, the only extant trilogy among the Greek tragedies, is one of the great foundational texts of Western culture. Beginning with Agamemnon, which describes Agamemnon's return from the Trojan War and his murder at the hands of his wife Clytemnestra, and continuing through...
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The Oresteia by Aeschylus, the only extant trilogy among the Greek tragedies, is one of the great foundational texts of Western culture. Beginning with Agamemnon, which describes Agamemnon's return from the Trojan War and his murder at the hands of his wife Clytemnestra, and continuing through Orestes' murder of Clytemnestra in Libation Bearers and his acquittal at Athena's court in Eumenides, the trilogy traces the evolution of justice in human society from blood vengeance to the rule of law. The story of the house of Atreus is a tale of incest, adultery, human sacrifice, cannibalism, and political intrigue. It is also a story in which human action is simultaneously willed and determined. In this new translation the strangeness of the original Greek and its enduring human truth come alive in language that is remarkable for its unrelenting poetic intensity, its rich metaphorical texture, and a verbal density that can at times modulate into the simplest expressions. The precise but complicated rhythms of this translation honor the music of the original Greek, bringing into unforgettable English the Aeschylean vision of a world fraught with spiritual and political tensions, a world in which justice is a cosmic balance that inevitably rights itself both by means of and despite the evil deeds of characters who claim to act on justice's behalf.
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2.

Tragedy and the Tragic: Greek Theatre and Beyond (includes "The Unity of the Oresteia") » Read Now
by M. S. Silk. 566 pgs.

Collections: Literature, Entire Library

This important book of thirty new essays focuses on the crucial question: what makes tragedy, especially Greek tragedy, tragic? The contributors include many of the world's foremost scholars in the field of Greek drama. The book is accessible to readers with no knowledge of Greek and will be...
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This important book of thirty new essays focuses on the crucial question: what makes tragedy, especially Greek tragedy, tragic? The contributors include many of the world's foremost scholars in the field of Greek drama. The book is accessible to readers with no knowledge of Greek and will be essential reading for anyone interested in tragedy, especially students and specialists in classics, drama, and English literature.
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3.

Gender and Politics in Greek Tragedy (includes "'Not of Woman Born': The Oresteia") » Read Now
by August W. Staub, Michael X. Zelenak. 158 pgs.

Collections: Literature, Entire Library

Theatrical tragedy, like all other major civic institutions of the fifth-century B.C. Athenian democratic patriarchy, was exclusively male. The course of western drama changed when women characters (played by transvestite male performers) were introduced. Gender and Politics in Greek Tragedy...
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Theatrical tragedy, like all other major civic institutions of the fifth-century B.C. Athenian democratic patriarchy, was exclusively male. The course of western drama changed when women characters (played by transvestite male performers) were introduced. Gender and Politics in Greek Tragedy explores themes and issues of gender identity and political ideology in plays by Aeschylus (Suppliant Maidens, Oresteia), Sophocles (Antigone, Philoctetes), and Euripides (Alcestis, Medea, Orestes, Helen, Iphigeneia in Aulis, Bakkhai). This is the first book-length treatment of the themes of gender and politics in ancient Greek tragedy.
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4.

The Legends of Troy in Art and Literature (includes a chapter on The Oresteia) » Read Now
by Margaret R. Scherer. 304 pgs.

Collections: Religious Studies, Literature, Entire Library

...THE ILIAD page 1 THE ILIAD page 55 THE FALL OF TROY page 95 THE ORESTEIA page 131 THE ODYSSEY page 141 THE AENEID page 181 APPENDICES...
5.

The Thinker as Artist: From Homer to Plato & Aristotle (includes "Aeschylus: On the Oresteia") » Read Now
by George Anastaplo. 410 pgs.

Collections: Philosophy, Literature, Entire Library

In an attempt to subject representative texts of a dozen ancient authors to a more or less Socratic inquiry, the noted scholar George Anastaplo suggests in The Thinker as Artist how one might usefully read as well as enjoy such texts, which illustrate the thinking done by the greatest artists and...
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In an attempt to subject representative texts of a dozen ancient authors to a more or less Socratic inquiry, the noted scholar George Anastaplo suggests in The Thinker as Artist how one might usefully read as well as enjoy such texts, which illustrate the thinking done by the greatest artists and how they "talk" among themselves across the centuries. In doing so, he does not presume to repeat the many fine things said about these and like authors, but rather he discusses what he himself has noticed about them, text by text.
Drawing upon a series of classical authors ranging from Homer and Sappho to Plato and Aristotle, Anastaplo examines issues relating to chance, art, nature, and divinity present in the artful works of philosophers and other thinkers.
As he has done in his earlier work, Anastaplo mines the great texts to help us discover who we are and what we should be. Some of the works used are familiar, others were once better known than they are now. The approach to all of them is freshand provocative, demonstrating the value of such texts in showing the reader what to look for and how to talk about matters that have always engaged thoughtful human beings.
These imaginative yet disciplined discussions of important texts of ancient Greek thought and of Raphael's The School of Athens should appeal to both the specialist and the general reader.
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6.

The Family in Greek History (includes "The Human Tragedy: The Oresteia" in "Adultery Onstage and in Court") » Read Now
by Cynthia B. Patterson. 286 pgs.

Collections: History, Entire Library

The family, Cynthia Patterson demonstrates, played a key role in the political changes that mark the history of ancient Greece. From the archaic society portrayed in Homer and Hesiod to the Hellenistic age, the private world of the family and household was integral with and essential to the civic...
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The family, Cynthia Patterson demonstrates, played a key role in the political changes that mark the history of ancient Greece. From the archaic society portrayed in Homer and Hesiod to the Hellenistic age, the private world of the family and household was integral with and essential to the civic realm.
Early Greek society was rooted not in clans but in individual households, and a man's or woman's place in the larger community was determined by relationships within those households. The development of the city-state did not result in loss of the family's power and authority, Patterson argues; rather, the protection of household relationships was an important element of early public law. The interaction of civic and family concerns in classical Athens is neatly articulated by the examples of marriage and adultery laws. In law courts and in theater performances, violation of marital relationships was presented as a public danger, the adulterer as a sexual thief. This is an understanding thatfits the Athenian concept of the city as the highest form of family. The suppression of the cities with the ascendancy of Alexander's empire led
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7.

On Aristotle and Greek Tragedy (includes "Agamemnon's Murder") » Read Now
by John Jones. 284 pgs.

Collections: Philosophy, Literature, Entire Library

...ON ARISTOTLE AND GREEK TRAGEDY -2- ON ARISTOTLE AND GREEK TRAGEDY John Jones Senior Lecturer in English Literature in the University of Oxford, formerly Fellow...
8.

Intimate Commerce: Exchange, Gender, and Subjectivity in Greek Tragedy (includes "The Violence of Kharis in Aeschylus's Agamemnon") » Read Now
by Victoria Wohl. 296 pgs.

Collections: Literature, Entire Library

Wohl offers an illuminating analysis of the exchange of women in Sophocles'Trachiniae, Aeschylus' Agamemnon, and Euripides' Alcestis. She asserts that while the tragedies present an affirmation of Athens' reigning ideologies (including its gender hierarchy), they also offer the possibility of resistance to them.
9.

Plato's Penal Code: Tradition, Controversy, and Reform in Greek Penology (includes a section on The Oresteia) » Read Now
by Trevor J. Saunders. 414 pgs.

Collections: Philosophy, Entire Library

This book assesses Plato's penal code within the tradition of Greek penology. Saunders provides a detailed exposition of the emergence of the concept of publicly controlled, rationally calculated, and socially directed punishment in the period between Homer and Plato. He outlines the serious debate...
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This book assesses Plato's penal code within the tradition of Greek penology. Saunders provides a detailed exposition of the emergence of the concept of publicly controlled, rationally calculated, and socially directed punishment in the period between Homer and Plato. He outlines the serious debate that ensued in the fifth century over the opposition by philosophers to popular judicial assumptions, and shows how the philosophical arguments gradually gained ground. He demonstrates that Plato advanced the most radical of the philosophical formulations of the concept of punishment in his Laws, arguing that punishment is or should be utilitarian and strictly reformative. This first comprehensive and detailed study of Plato's penology gives deserved attention to the works of a most important political and legal thinker.
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10.

Greek Tragedy on the American Stage: Ancient Drama in the Commercial Theater, 1882-1994 (includes information on the Oresteia in "Greek Tragedy Responds to War, Drugs, and Flower Children: 1960-1970") » Read Now
by Karelisa V. Hartigan. 161 pgs.

Collections: Literature, Entire Library

During the past century, the interpretation given by the various directors staging Greek drama has varied, and the critical reception accorded the productions has also altered. While the texts of Aeschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides remain constant, the meanings drawn from their plays do not. The...
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During the past century, the interpretation given by the various directors staging Greek drama has varied, and the critical reception accorded the productions has also altered. While the texts of Aeschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides remain constant, the meanings drawn from their plays do not. The director who decides to offer a Greek tragedy in the modern American commercial theater believes in the ability of the text to reach the contemporary audience, and the reviewers assess the success of the venture: their words become a record of both a particular performance and the time in which it played. Hartigan explores how drama and society interact and witnesses the continued vitality of the Greek tragedy.
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11.

The Theatre of Jean-Louis Barrault (includes "Problems Raised by the Oresteia") » Read Now
by Jean-Louis Barrault, Joseph Chiari. 246 pgs.

Collections: Entire Library

...1. Problems raised by the Oresteia 64 2. Menander 84...sterile anguish, says Aeschylus in the Oresteia. In fact, until Aeschylus, every poet...a kind of farce which went...