Editorial Reviews
Book Description
Aeschylus' "Agamemnon", opening play of the Oresteia trilogy, with its brilliant theatrical effects, is a masterpiece. The revenge plot is simple, the language and imagery complex and thrilling. The play features two extraordinary women: the powerful, dissembling queen Clytemnestra and the frenzied prophetess Cassandra. It also features another original Aeschylean creation, the omnipresent helpless chorus, forced to bear witness to Agamemnon's path to death. Through the chorus, the action is seen in the context of justice, destiny and the role of the gods. The play is a serious investigation of man's problematic ethical nature.
This detailed study sets the play against the rich traditions of archaic poetry from which drama had only recently sprung. It considers the ethical dilemmas of the plot in the context of fifth-century Athenian religious and political thinking, and the play's attitude to women. It engages with the play's influence on later Attic tragedy, on Seneca's Roman "Agamemnon", and on some revenge dramas of Elizabethan England.
About the Author
Barbara Goward teaches Greek and Latin at the City Literary Institute, London.
Aeschylus: Agamemnon (Duckworth Companions to Greek & Roman Tragedy) (Duckworth Companions to Greek & Roman Tragedy),Barbara Goward,Duckworth Publishers,0715633856,Classics,Drama,Literary Criticism,Literature - Classics / Criticism,Ancient (Classical) Greek,Plays & playwrights: classical, early & medieval
Books Info:
Recommended Books