A Companion to Aeschylus (Blackwell Companions to the Ancient World)

A COMPANION TO AESCHYLUS In A Companion to Aeschylus , a team of eminent Aeschyleans and brilliant younger scholars delivers an insightful and original multi-authored examination―the first comprehensive one in English―of the works of the earliest surviving Greek tragedian. This book explores Aeschylean drama, and its theatrical, historical, philosophical, religious, and socio-political contexts, as well as the receptions and influence of Aeschylus from antiquity to the present day. This companion offers readers thorough examinations of Aeschylus as a product of his time, including his place in the early years of the Athenian democracy and his immediate and ongoing impact on tragedy. It also provides comprehensive explorations of all the surviving plays, including Prometheus Bound, which many scholars have concluded is not by Aeschylus. A Companion to Aeschylus is an ideal resource for students encountering the work of Aeschylus for the first time as well as more advanced scholars seeking incisive treatment of his individual works, their cultural context and their enduring significance. Written in an accessible format, with the Greek translated into English and technical terminology avoided as much as possible, the book belongs in the library of anyone looking for a fresh and authoritative account of works of continuing interest and importance to readers and theatre-goers alike. Introduction: Aeschylus and his place in history / Peter Burian -- Democracy's age of bronze : Aeschylus's plays and Athenian history, 508-454 BCE / Robert Wallace -- Aeschylus, lyric, and epic / P.J. Finglass -- Tragedy before Aeschylus / P.J. Finglass -- Aeschylean tragedy as intellectual history / Jacques A. Bromberg -- Aeschylus in Sicily between democracy and tyranny / Malcom Bell -- Persians / A.F. Garvie -- Seven against Thebes / Isabelle Torrance -- Suppliants / Rebecca Futo Kennedy -- The Oresteia / David Porter -- Eumenides : justice, gender, the gods and the city / Peter Burian -- Intertheatricality and narrative structure in the Electra plays / Kirk Ormand -- Prometheus bound : the principle of hope / Isabel Ruffell -- Slices from the feast : the fragments / Anthony Podlecki -- Aeschylean Satyr drama / Carl Shaw -- The tetralogy / Alan Sommerstein -- Visualizing the stage / A.C. Duncan -- The choruses of Aeschylus / Eva Stehle -- Music, dance and meter in Aeschylean tragedy / Naomi Weiss -- Aeschylus : language and style / Richard Rutherford -- The long view in Aeschylus : intergenerational myth-making through the "other" / Arum Park -- Aeschylus and subversion of ritual / Richard Seaford -- Ghosts, demons, and gods : supernatural challenges / Amit Shilo -- Inscribing justice in Aeschylean drama / Sarah Nooter -- Race in Aeschylus's Persians and suppliant women / Sarah Derbew -- Aeschylus's Persians and the "just war" / Sydnor Roy -- Aeschylus and history / Emily Baragwanath -- Aeschylus and Athenian law / Fred Naiden -- Athens between hegemony and empire / David Rosenbloom -- Critical approaches to Aeschylus today / Mark Griffith -- The reputation and influence of Aeschylus in antiquity / C.W. Mashall -- The transmission of Aeschylus : the miracle of survival / Marsh McCall -- The bow of Ulysses : Aeschylus and his translators / Deborah Roberts -- Variations on a theme : Prometheus / Theodore Ziolkowski -- Myth, history and revolution in the nineteenth-century reception of the Oresteia / Adam Lecznar -- Three landmarks in the reception of the Oresteia in 20th-century drama / Vayos Liapis -- Oresteia on stage : Kuhn, Stein, Hall, and Mnouchkine / Hallie Rebecca Marshall -- Transforming Aeschylus on the modern stage / Helene P. Foley -- Applied Aeschylus / Peter Meineck -- Teaching the Oresteia as a work for the theater / Robin Mitchell-Boyask A Companion to Aeschylus 2 Contents 10 List of Figures 13 Preface and Acknowledgements 14 Notes on Contributors 15 Introduction: Aeschylus and His Place in History 22 Part I Aeschylus in His Time 34 1 Democracy’s Age of Bronze: Aeschylus’s Plays and Athenian History, 508/7–454 BCE 36 2 Aeschylus, Lyric and Epic 48 3 Tragedy before Aeschylus 61 4 Aeschylean Drama and Intellectual History 68 5 Aeschylus in Sicily between Tyranny and Democracy 82 Part II Aeschylus as Playwright 96 6 Persians 98 7 Seven against Thebes 109 8 Fear of Foreign Women in Aeschylus’s Suppliants 120 9 Disorder, Resolution and Language: The Oresteia 135 10 Eumenides: Justice, Gender, the Gods and the City 151 11 Intertheatricality and Narrative Structure in the Electra Plays 166 12 Prometheus Bound: The Principle of Hope 179 13 Slices from Aeschylus’s Feast: The Fragmentary Works 192 14 Aeschylean Satyr Drama 206 15 The Tetralogy 222 16 Visualising the Stage 235 17 The Choruses of Aeschylus 251 18 Music, Dance and Metre in Aeschylean Tragedy 263 19 Aeschylus: Language and Style 275 20 The Long View in Aeschylus: Intergenerational Myth-Making through the “Other” 288 Part III Aeschylus and Greek Society 302 21 Aeschylus and Subversion of Ritual 304 22 Ghosts, Demons and Gods: Supernatural Challenges 316 23 Inscribing Justice in Aeschylean Drama 331 24 Race in Aeschylus’s Suppliant Women and Persians 344 25 Aeschylus’s Persians and the “Just War” 355 26 Aeschylus and History 367 27 Aeschylus and Athenian Law 382 28 Aeschylus’s Athens between Hegemony and Empire 394 Part IV The Influence of Aeschylus 410 29 Critical Approaches to Aeschylus, from the Nineteenth Century to the Present 412 30 The Reception of Aeschylus in the Fifth and Fourth Centuries 433 31 The Transmission of Aeschylus: The Miracle of Survival 446 32 The Bow of Ulysses: Aeschylus and his Translators 458 33 Variations on a Theme: Prometheus 476 34 Myth, History and Revolution in the Nineteenth-Century Reception of the Oresteia 488 35 Three Landmarks in the Reception of the Oresteia in Twentieth-Century Drama 500 36 Oresteia on Stage: Koun, Stein, Hall and Mnouchkine 512 37 Transforming Aeschylus on the Modern Stage 526 38 Applied Aeschylus 539 39 Teaching the Oresteia as a Work for the Theatre 554 Epilogue 565 Index 579 EULA 594 "This volume, written by a team of scholars that includes some of the most prominent senior Aeschyleans alongside extraordinarily accomplished younger scholars, is intended to explore, in so far as a single book can, every aspect of Aeschylus's art, including the historical, intellectual, and cultural milieu from which his work emerged (Section 1); the plays themselves examined from many and varied perspectives (Section 2); and a broad range of topics in the reception of Aeschylus from antiquity to the present day (Section 3). It is the first such comprehensive, mutli-authored work in English dedicated to the first surviving Greek tragedian. Jacques Bromberg synthesizes the contents of the volume in his Epilogue, whereas this Introduction is meant simply to set the scene. It examines the sources of our information about the man himself and his career in order to suggest what we can know and reasonably surmise about his life, and offer an initial assessment of his significance, above all the significance of his contributions to the history of drama. Aeschylus comes onto the scene, not at the very beginning of the Athenian tragic theater but close enough to it to be regarded as the essential founding figure. The surviving corpus of his work consists of six complete plays-less than ten percent of his production and all dating from the last two decades of his long career-and Prometheus Bound, which is likely not his. In addition, there are somewhat fewer than five-hundred fragments longer than a single word or isolated phrase. The enormous admiration and popularity which he enjoyed in his lifetime and through the fifth century BCE yielded later to the consensus that Sophocles was the more perfect artist and Euripides the more exciting and intellectually challenging playwright, but Aeschylus's role in the development of tragedy was never forgotten. Here, for example, is the image of Aeschylus brought to mind in, of all places, the Life of Apollonius of Tyana, a novelistic account of the supposed miracles and travels of a first-century CE sage written by Philostratus in the early third century"-- Provided by publisher