SEAFORD Six Obstacles to Understanding Aeschylus (original) (raw)
Related papers
2018
With the dramatic plays written by Aeschylus, the ideals of the new radical democracy are brought to the fore, and with them the roots of a radical concept of evil and good, crime and justice are clearly depicted. Aeschylus focuses on personal conflicts, on issues of power and its abuse, and commends political news. In the preface to his thesis, Marx quotes Prometheus’ response to Hermes (Mercury) (in the work Prometheus Bound, line 968) “With this offer of paid service, rest assured, I’d not change my hard lot, not I”, adding that the Aeschylean Prometheus is the finest saint and witness of philosophical chronology.
(EN) Reading remote places in Aeschylus’ early tragedies
Being freed from theoretical and formal restrictions, the theories relating to Greek tragedy now took into consideration several new aspects of the genre that go beyond the notions of verbal text, space, plot and character. Greek tragedy recalls the imagination of the spectator who would be able to see afar the stage territories and phenomena of imagination, clandestinely coded in the text.
This volume offers a new research on the ways in which Aeschylus has been received into the world since the classical period. Therefore, the book is not a comprehensive study, but it presents a combination of explorations of receptions and acts of reception; in fact, as stated by R. Futo Kennedy's introduction (1-5), all the essays aim to underline Aeschylus' influence in the world. The collection, which contains twenty-five chapters, is organised in two parts (Pre-Modern Receptions and Modern Receptions) and in general chronological order within each section.
The study of fragments, dramatic or otherwise, inevitably involves 'an element of creative fiction (which is not a dirty word),' as Matthew Wright has recently so aptly observed. 1 In this respect, at least, 'fragmentology' finds itself in methodological harmony with a rather different type of reconstructive project: the history and analysis of ancient dramatic performance. While much excellent work has been done in recent decades to expand our understanding of the conditions and structures which obtained in ancient theatrical productions, 2 scholarly discussions of ancient performance nevertheless still require a certain imaginative leap and the study of opsis retains something of its Aristotelian legacy as the least technical (atechnotaton) part of tragedy. 3 Like fragmentologists, those thinking about ancient performance must face 'the unavoidable hazard' of piling 'conjecture upon hypothesis,' with results that are 'necessarily speculative at best.' 4 With regards to both of these speculative endeavors, I share Wright's view that the use of creativity and imagination in the face of irresolvable uncertainties does not, in and of itself, undermine the intellectual value of scholarship. Rather, as Wright urges, we can (and should) 1 Wright (2016) xxv. 2 In addition to the seminal work of
Symbolae Philologorum Posnaniensium Graecae et Latinae, 2019
In this article I would like to focus on one research topic: how ancient tragedians manipulated their drama plots (based on Greek mythology) so as to use them for influencing Athenian “international policies.” Those were not any mistakes or airs of nonchalance on the part of the Athenian tragedians; it was just their carefully premeditated strategy of creating persuasive messages to function as pure propaganda. I am chiefly directing my attention to the topic of how the Athenians established their relations with the allies. Meaning the closest neighbours as well as some of those who did not belong in the circle of the Hellenic civilization. I have decided to devote all of my attention to Aeschylus’ and Euripides’ works, as both of them were obvious supporters of the democratic faction. I focused my attention on the texts: Aeschylus: The Suppliants, Oresteia; Euripides: Heracleidae, Andromache, Archelaus,Temenos.
2006
This article, the first academic discussion of Greek tragedy on BBC Radio, offers a historical outline of the production of Aeschylus’ Oresteia plays from the inaugural Greek tragedy on the Third Programme in 1946 to a landmark experimental production on Radio 3 thirty years later. This case-study demonstrates the importance of the radio medium in the reception history of Greek tragedy in twentieth-century Britain, and attempts to open up the discussion of the social and cultural impact of these productions. The radio medium, in permeating cultural, economic, and geographical boundaries, undoubtedly brought knowledge and experience of Greek tragedy in performance to an audience which was at once massive and diverse, and situated beyond the theatrical and educational spheres usually occupied by Greek tragedy. Attention is focused on the collaborative relationship between radio producers (such as Val Gielgud, Raymond Raikes, and John Theocharis) and translators and writers (such as Louis MacNeice, Philip Vellacott and Gabriel Josipovici), which secured a steady flow of new scripts for production, introductory talks for broadcast, and explanatory articles for publication in the Radio Times. The process also, importantly, encouraged the emerging function of the producer as textual editor for the medium, manipulating the script for realization in the visualizing imagination of the listener.