Aeschylus

Aeschylus , 525-456 BC, Athenian tragic dramatist, b. Eleusis. The first of the three great Greek writers of tragedy, Aeschylus was the predecessor of Sophocles and Euripides .

Aeschylus fought at Marathon and at Salamis. In 476 BC he went to Sicily to live at the court of Hiero I, and he died at Gela. He wrote perhaps 90 plays (7 survive in full) and won 13 first prizes at the Greater Dionysia, the spring dramatic festival in which each dramatist submitted four connected plays—a tragic trilogy and a lighter satyr play.

Achievements and Characteristics

Prior to Aeschylus, tragedy had been a dramatically limited dialogue between a chorus and one actor. Aeschylus added an actor, who often took more than one part, thus allowing for dramatic conflict. He also introduced costumes, stage decoration, and supernumeraries. In addition, Aeschylus also appeared in his own plays.

In the sophisticated theology of his tragedies, human transgressions are punished by divine power, and humans learn from this suffering, so that it serves a positive, moral purpose. At their best, his choral lyrics are rivals of the odes of Pindar . The choruses, more important in Aeschylus than in his successors, both comment on the action as well as present it. Vivid in its character portrayal, majestic in its tone, and captivating in its lyricism, Aeschylus' tragic poetry is esteemed among the greatest of all time. He alone of Greek tragedians was honored at Athens by having his plays performed repeatedly after his death.

The Plays

The extant plays of Aeschylus are hard to date. The earliest is probably The Suppliants, simple in plot (concerning the 50 daughters of Danaüs) and with only one actor besides the chorus. The Persians (472? BC), glorifying the Athenian victory over Persia at Salamis, has two actors, but the new form is still unpolished. The Seven against Thebes can be dated to 467. Prometheus Bound (see Prometheus ), of uncertain date, is striking for its bald attack on the vengefulness of the gods toward man, but the later two parts of its trilogy, which are lost, may have portrayed Zeus as just.

The last three tragedies of Aeschylus compose the only extant ancient trilogy, called the Oresteia, a history of the House of Atreus , with which the poet won first prize in 458. The three plays are Agamemnon, The Choëphoroe (The Libation Bearers), and The Eumenides; in each play three actors are used—an innovation borrowed from Sophocles. Because of its scope, complexity, and the profundity of its themes (the significance of human suffering and the true meaning of justice), the Oresteia as a whole is considered by many to be the greatest Attic tragedy. Browning 's Agamemnon is a poetic translation of the first play, and Eugene O'Neill 's Mourning Becomes Electra is an American reworking of the trilogy. The translation by David Grene and Richmond Lattimore in The Complete Greek Tragedies is one of many English translations of his plays.

Bibliography

See studies by G. Murray (1940), M. H. McCall, ed. (1972), T. G. Rosenmeyer (1982), R. P. Winnington-Ingram (1983), and J. Herington (1986).

Aeschylus (525?–456 bc) Earliest of the great Greek dramatists. Aeschylus is said to have been responsible for the development of tragedy as a dramatic form through his addition of a second actor and reduction of the role of the chorus. He was also the first to introduce scenery. His best-known work is the trilogy Oresteia, which comprises Agamemnon, The Choephori, and The Eumenides.

http://classics.mit.edu/Browse/browse-Aeschylus.html

Aeschylus (525/4–456 BC), Greek dramatist, born at Eleusis, near Athens, who also won distinction as a soldier in the Persian War. He is said to have written 90 plays, of which the titles of 79 are known, though only seven are extant: the Suppliant Women (? c.490 BC), the Persians (472), the Seven against Thebes (469), the Prometheus Bound (? c.460), and the trilogy known as the Oresteia (the Agamemnon, the Choephori, or Libation-Bearers, and the Eumenides) (458). About a quarter of his plays must have been satyr-dramas, in which genre he was an acknowledged master. Nothing of these survives except a few fragments.

Aeschylus may reasonably be regarded as the founder of European drama. By reducing the size of the chorus and introducing a second actor into the play (see AGON), he made the histrionic part as important as the lyric, and so turned oratorio into drama. The transition can be seen in his early plays. In the Suppliant Women the chorus is the chief actor; in the Persians the chorus still gives the play its formal unity; but the Seven against Thebes is clearly dominated by the chief actor. In his later plays Aeschylus used (in a highly individual way) the innovation of the third actor, introduced by Sophocles.

Dramatists competing at the Athens festival had to present three serious plays and one satyr-play; Aeschylus normally made the three plays a connected ‘trilogy’ in which each part, though a complete unity, was a coherent part of a larger unity. This gave his drama the amplitude which his vast conceptions needed. The normal scheme may be very baldly summarized as the offence, the counter-offence and the resolution; sin provokes sin, until justice asserts itself. The only complete trilogy which has survived is the Oresteia. Of the other plays, the Suppliant Women and the Prometheus Bound were the first plays of their trilogies, the Seven against Thebes the third of its; and, judging by what has been recovered, the scale of these trilogies was hardly less majestic than that of the Oresteia.

These conceptions were matched by a bold dramatic technique, an immense concentration, a wonderful sense of structure, and magnificent poetry. Aeschylus made the utmost use of spectacle and colour; and, in virtue of the beauty and strength of his choral odes, he might well be regarded as one of the greatest of lyric poets. By virtue of his many talents, Aeschylus imposed a unity on the theatre which it was soon to lose: he was his own director, chief actor, designer, composer, and choreographer. As a unique honour to him, it was enacted in Athens after his death that his plays might be revived at the festivals, to which normally only new plays were admitted.