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Agamemnon’sNostos Aeschylus’Oresteia
Tragedy and the Athenian Democracy •Review introduction toPrometheus Bound. • Plays were written by Athenians for audience of Athenians and visitors. • The birth of Greek tragedy is roughly simultaneous with establishment of democracy, in the late 6th century BCE. • The plots of tragedy tend to problematize conventional ‘aristocratic’ values. • At the same time, the tragic plots are based on stories from the mythic (epic) past, which uphold these same values. • Tragedy often explores tensions between loyalty to the civic community (polis)and loyalty to the household/family (oikos).
Context of War • War was an almost constant reality for Athenians throughout the 5th century BCE. •The Persian Wars dominated the early half of the century. • The Peloponnesian War occupied Athens for the last third of the century. • Athenian boys were raised and trained to be soldiers. •Many families had lost loved ones fighting both overseas and in defensive battles close to their own city. • Aeschylus himself fought against the Persian invaders at the battle of Marathon in 490 BCE. • Many Athenian tragedies deal with the effects of war, particularly with the difficulties the warrior in battle had in achieving a successful transition back into his domestic life at home. • The Trojan war stories provided mythic material for exploring these problems.
TheOresteia:A Familiar Story •The audience of Athenian tragedy already knew, from theOdysseyand elsewhere, the story of Agamemnon’s homecoming. •In Athenian tragedy, well-known myths are enacted on the stage. The interest lay in how the playwright chose to interpret the story, to find new meaning in it. What did he emphasize? What did he choose to leave out? • Some changes in details could be introduced, but the major plot elements had to conform with what the audience knew from earlier versions, for example, from Homer. • This produces a sense of inevitable fate. • It also offers rich potential for irony, because the audience has information that the characters in the tragedy do not have.
Dramatic Irony • Dramatic irony is a literary device, in which the full significance of a character's words or actions are understood by the audience, but not by the character. • The audience thus has a higher level of knowledge than the characters onstage. • The audience, because they know the future in a way that the characters do not, enjoy a god-like perspective.
Review: House of Atreus (at Argos) Tantalus | Pelops+ Hippodameia /\ ThyestesAtreus+ Aerope //\ AegisthusAgamemnonMenelaus (Clytemnestra)(Helen)
Tantalus • A son of Zeus •Dined with the Gods • Stole divine food • Served his son to gods
Pelops • Loved by Poseidon, who gave him a chariot. • Oinomaos, king of Pisa, had a daughter, Hippodameia.
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