Essays on Aeschylus

During ancient times, the Greeks would turn to the gods for advice and intervention when presented with a problem whether it was to bring the rain to save their crops so that their families could eat or in the case of Oresteia, to decide whether or not a person accused of murder was truly guilty. The goddess they often turned to for guidance was the goddess Themis whose “ability to foresee the future enabled her to become one of the oracles at Delphi, which in turn led to her establishment as the goddess of divine justice” (Swatt, “Themis, Goddess ...

Institutions Affiliation

Introduction The historical claims and preferences on the Sophocles drama date back in the early B.C. Sophocles were born by Sophilus, a wealthy armorer in Colonus in the land of Athens, c.497 B.C. The creativity and critical and analytical thinking domain to establish modern and great tragic drama started when he was an adult. The life determination and an artistic creation of the playwrights gained him popularity in the city of Athens as he received the citizen's love. The prevalence's of the Sophocles started in early childhood that is at the age of sixteen when he led the boys’ ...

COURSES

Introduction Prometheus Bound is an Ancient Greek tragic play that is one of three plays concerning the larger than human figure, Prometheus. Prometheus and Zeus, the main ancient Greek god of the time, argue, and Prometheus is punished to a life bound in chains. This is where the title, Prometheus Bound, is given to the play. Even being bound in chains Prometheus manages to annoy Zeus as he gives to mankind the gift of fire, even though Zeus does not want this to happen. Prometheus is chained through the whole play but he portrays a strong moral character. Zeus, ...

Aeschylus’s tragedy, “Agamemnon” presents the return of the king from the Trojan War, and his death at the hands of his own wife, Clytemnestra, soon after his arrival. The readers find out early in the play that, in order to reach the battleground, Agamemnon had to sacrifice his daughter Iphigenia to appease the gods. The chorus presents the sacrifice with many horrific details, in order to outrage the audience and to direct their antipathy towards the king. Later in the play, Clytemnestra murders the king, and his mistress, and claims that his daughter has finally been revenged. However, ...

Fate versus free will is a common theme in Greek tragedies. In many cases a person who tries to avert their predestined fate will set the pieces in motion that will inevitably lead to that fate. Laius and Jocasta from Oedipus are examples of this. On the other hand, you have characters like Prometheus, and Zeus, who knowingly put their own fates into motion bur want to avoid the consequences. Finally, you have Agamemnon and Cassandra who are resigned to their fates. In Prometheus Bound Zeus has ordered Hephaestus to bind the titan Prometheus to a rock as punishment ...

Introduction and Thesis

First published in 1922, Virginia Woolf’s Jacob’s Room was her first novel to use modernist and impressionistic techniques. This paper will show that Woolf’s methodology (the way she wrote the novel) is intimately connected with the thematic preoccupations of the author: the method mirrors the message. Jacob’s Room is commonly seen as an indictment of the sterility and emptiness of modern civilization at the start of the twentieth century and it is true that at its heart is an existential angst that is presented vividly by Woolf. However, this paper will argue that Woolf uses ...

The remarkable story of The Prime of Miss. Jean Brodie illuminates two interlaced eras; the 1930s when most of the action takes place and the 1960s when it was published. . Most of the novel takes place during the 1930s at the Marcia Blaine School for Girls in Edinburgh, Scotland, The book center on the schoolmistress, Miss Jean Brodie and her girls, a small group of students, known as "the Brodie set." The girls are six, junior level, ten year old girls when they became Miss Jean Brodie’s “crème de la crème” and started a two year tutelage with ...

Introduction

Since its inception some twenty thousand years ago, human civilization has grown enormously and has spread all over the entire globe in past few centuries. The vastness of human civilization is managed through institutions – the institutions of education, state, law, religion, family, marriage etc. These institutions are all interrelated. Stability and order in the society are primary purposes of these institutions. The functioning of all these institutions is based on certain principles and the central to these principles is the principle of infinite value of human life. Killing of a human life stands in opposition to the principle of infinite ...

The urge to tackle the reception of the arts is what differentiates the criticism Daniel Mendelsohn has on the United 93 film that depicts the happenings of September 2001 in the US. He has mastered the ability to pen down his reviews as commentaries in a cultural manner. His article September 11 at the Movies is one artistic response to the film United 93 that defines that day. Moments before the towers got hit; Daniel says his mind was on a classical Greek drama the Aeschylus’ Persians that is a true example of a real historical event (Mendelsohn, 43). This thought is what ...

Introduction

Ancient Greek literature refers to the kind of literature that was written in the language of Ancient Greece from the time of the earliest texts to the time of the rise of the empire of Byzantine. The period of Greek literature stretches from the time of Homer to the time of the rise of Alexander the Great (Highet p.2). Mycenaean was the earliest Greek writings written on clay tablets using the Linear B syllabus. The Greek literature was well defined into literary genres that had an essential proper organization with both metrics and dialect. The ancient Greek literature involved ...

Introduction

Oresteia is a trilogy pitting Greek tragedies that are written by Aeschylus. The trilogy concerns the closing stages of the curse that was cast in the House of Atreus. In its original sense, Oresteia referred to the four plays. However, in the contemporary world, it refers to the surviving trilogy. The primary theme in the trilogy is the change of the pursuit of personal vendetta to a new system that incorporates litigation. The name Oresteia is derived from the character of Orestes, who in a bout on anger and thirst for revenge pursues the revenge of his father’s murder. Throughout the ...

Introduction

“The Oresteia is a trilogy of Greek tragedies” is a book written by Aeschylus which definitely highlights the end of the bother on the House of Atreus. The book consists of three plays; Agamemnon, the Libation Bearers and the Avenging Furies OR Kindly Spirit. The apparent melodramatic ending of Aeschylus' Oresteia is not as melodramatic as it seems. An example is illustrated by Agamemnon who enters into a chariot which certainly illustrates that not everyone in Argos is definitely well disposed to the king. The story of “ORESTEIA” causes a melodramatic ending in the end but on the inner view of it, ...

ORESTES A PLAY BY EURIPIDES

INTRODUCTION

The play was written by Euripides and it was first performed in 1408 BC in Ancient Athens. The play is about the young boy who with the help of his younger sister kills his mother Clymnestria in order to revenge for the murder of his father who was the king of Mycenae (Carson 2010,5). The play starts with the young boy condemned to death by the people of his father’s kingdom and tormented by guilt of killing his own mother (Aeschylus and Arthur 2004, 5).

PLOT OF THE PLAY

The play starts with Orestes sister Electrica telling us of her ...