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Good Old Aeschylus

Good Old Aeschylus. Born at Eleusis 525 B.C. Dionysus, god of wine and revelry, supposedly appeared to him in his father’s vineyard while Aeschylus was napping and told him to be a dramatist of tragedy Fought at Artemisium, Salamis, Platæa, and Marathon.

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Good Old Aeschylus

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  1. Good Old Aeschylus • Born at Eleusis 525 B.C. • Dionysus, god of wine and revelry, supposedly appeared to him in his father’s vineyard while Aeschylus was napping and told him to be a dramatist of tragedy • Fought at Artemisium, Salamis, Platæa, and Marathon. • His last play of the Orestia was poorly received (showed him to be aristocratic) and he moved to Sicily in self-imposed exile. • According to tradition, he died at the age of 70 when an eagle believed his bald head to be a stone and dropped a tortoise upon it to break the shell. (In actuality, he died of natural causes.)

  2. The Story Agamemnon has returned home victorious from the Trojan war, where he went to lead the army and help his brother, King Menelaus, take Helen back from Paris. Clytemnestra is waiting for his return with her lover, his cousin Aegisthus. Clytemnestra kills Agamemnon in retribution for his sacrificing of their daughter Iphigenia to Artemis. She also kills his slave and concubine, the seer Cassandra. These two murders perpetuate the curse on the House of Atreus.

  3. The Production Produced in 458 B.C. Performed during the festival of Dionysus Very popular

  4. WWAD(What Would Aristotle Do) • Character • Goodness (Agamemnon) • Likeness (Agamemnon) • Consistency (All) • Neither Perfect nor Depraved (All) • Upper-class Citizen (Agamemnon) • Plot • Probable • Consistent • Beginning, Middle, and End • Suffering • Tragic Error • Hamartia

  5. W W A D not • Plot • Reversal • Recognition • Character • Goodness • (Clytaemnestra) • Appropriateness • (Clytaemnestra)

  6. The Chorus Not Omniscient Gives Backstory Foreshadows Comments on Themes Led by a Koryphaios Comprised of Elders

  7. Important Speeches A curse burns bright on crime full-blown, the father’s crimes will blossom, bust into the son’s… (117) No slave’s death, I think – no stealthier than the death he dealt our house and the offspring of our loins, Iphigeneia, girl of tears. Act for act, wound for wound! Never exult in Hades, swordsman, here you are repaid. By the sword you did your work and by the sword you die. (1551-1558) There is the sea and who will bleed it dry? Precious as silver, inexhaustible, ever-new, it breeds the more we reap it -- tides on tides of crimson dye our robes blood red. Our lives are based on wealth, my king, The gods have seen to that. (957-962)

  8. What Do YOU Think? According to ancient Grecian values, is Clytaemnestra justified in her actions? Is there reversal and/or recognition in Agamemnon? How would Aristotle have felt about The Orestia as a trilogy as opposed to The Oedipus Cycle as a trilogy? Can you think of any other literature that echoes elements of Agamemnon in plot, character, etc.?

  9. The Sacrifice of Iphigenia Giovanni Battista Tiepolo, 1735

  10. Clytemnestra Killing Cassandra (Red Figure, c. 430 BCE)

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