Doing Justice to Aeschylus' Oresteia
I may have mentioned before that my Greek tragedy professor Toph Marshall declared that Aeschylus' Oresteia (The Story of Orestes) is the single more important event in the history of Western civilization. The Oresteia is both the literary and the philosophical origin of the West. Having reread this massive trilogy again, I now believe this claim even more. The artistic and philosophical innovation of this work is absolutely divine.
One of the things that amazes me about this trilogy is its ability to bring the mythic to the real. For the majority of the play the action is set in Argos, the home of Agamemnon. (Those of you who know your mythology would realize that Aeschylus changed Agamemnon's home from Mycenae.) In the final trilogy, The Eumenides, the play then all of a sudden shift to Athens, addressing to the Athenian audience directly. Old mythic murders (of Clytemnestra and Aegisthus by Orestes) are now judged in modern, Athenian system of justice. What Aeschylus brings together is the old and the new, the mythic and the real, the personal and the universal.
Structurally, the play is almost constructed to perfection. The first and the second plays of the trilogy parallel almost exactly to each other: in Agamemnon, Clytemnestra kills Agamemnon by gile; in The Libation Bearers, Orestes does the same thing. Agamemnon sets up the story of Orestes in the last two plays; at the same time, it also give Orestes the historical burden of his murder - Orestes' murder belongs to a chain of murders starting from Atreus' generation. The mythic world is one that is dominated by the Earthly goddess, the Furies, who considers revenge as the only method of resolving conflict. But clearly in the case of the house of Atreus, revenge does not resolve conflict; rather, violence begets violence. Revenge is not restorative but destructive, and it must be stopped. Aeschylus points out that only by civilization, with laws, can this cycle of murder be stopped. The first two plays then are a perfect set up for the final, restorative play.
Aeschylus' treatment of the chorus is done with mastery. I have so much respect for his use of the chorus (unlike Euripides). Both the chorus of old men and maids in Agamemnon and The Libation Bearers are very much involved with the action. The old men openly challenge Aegisthus, while the maids actively persuade the Nurse to change her message to Aegisthus. The chorus of The Eumenides, the Furies, however, deserves a special note. It is absolutely ingenius to have a chorus fully involved in the action of the play and to treat them as if they are one crucial character. For the most part, Greek tragedies (especially the late ones) can be played without the Chorus (e.g. Sophocles' Philoctetes). In The Eumenides, however, the chorus becomes absolutely essential. Not only are they essential, they are also casted such that their actions are emotionally intense. Their emotions become the key to the resolution of the trilogy. The old gods felt cheated by Athena, and their anger threatens to collapse Athenian civilization. This is the point when we realize The Oresteia is not so much about how Orestes is acquited of his murder of his mother, but how a civilization comes together: the old, savage ways of "natural justice" has to give way to the modern justice of law. In the play, the Furies are essentially bought off by Athena and kept underground forever. If we wish to read this psychoanalytically, the pleasure principle (of uncontrolled desires) must give way to the reality principle (of justice and law).
"Justice" is the central theme of The Oresteia, and this is precisely what makes this trilogy so impressive. Aeschylus raised this question at least half a century before Plato, and he did provide us with a comprehensive answer: justice is in the law, which is equal in all situation and to all members of society. Justice is also a Platonic ideal: everyone has the same idea of justice if only one is wise enough to realize it (e.g. Athena, the goddess of wisdom, and her best twelve citizens). At the same time, judging by the split vote between the Athenians, we can also see that the interpretation of the Platonic ideal of justice is quite another human matter: we may have the same idea available, but how we interpret it is another thing. Justice then is also a cultural compromise, specific to one place and one time.
It is certainly interesting to see that the Greeks themselves knew that The Oresteia is a rare masterpiece. The Oresteia is the first trilogy that is allowed to be reproduced at the Dionysus festival after the author's death (so it's the first "classic"); it is also the only trilogy to have survived from antiquity (the so call "Oedipus trilogy" is actually just three completely separate plays about one character). It is a play that speaks to both the ancient and the modern: for us, the play is also about justice, but justice is no longer a Platonic ideal, but culturally relative. One can read the play deconstructively, and argue that Athenian justice is white, upperclass and male justice. The Athenian jury is made up of twelve male judges; Apollo privileges Orestes' case over others because he is the son of Agamemnon, the Greeks' greatest hero; Athena herself is explicitly misogynistic, favouring the male over the female; the decisive element of the trial is not whether Orestes is wrong in killing his mom, but whether the true parent of a child is the father or the mother, which is entirely irrevelant to the justice of Orestes' action. In the modern context, The Oresteia functions the exact opposite as what it was supposed to do.
But no matter. Artistically, the play is extremely intense and exciting to watch. (Reading would be difficult because the Chorurses' lines are among the most difficult to understand in theater. I have read the play three times now, and I will honest confess that most of the time I have no idea what the chorus is saying other than the superficial plot stuff.) The structural parallel between Agamemnon and The Libation Bearers is absolutely amazing, for the differences between the two plays also play a huge part in the interpretation of the overall trilogy. It is an absolutely massive piece of drama, and, like Hamlet, The Iliad, The Aeneid, Paradise Lost, Faust, Pride and Prejudice, Middlemarch, Ulysses, The Waste Land and a few other landmark literary works, it belongs to the very identity of Western civilization and must be read at some point of one's life time.
One of the things that amazes me about this trilogy is its ability to bring the mythic to the real. For the majority of the play the action is set in Argos, the home of Agamemnon. (Those of you who know your mythology would realize that Aeschylus changed Agamemnon's home from Mycenae.) In the final trilogy, The Eumenides, the play then all of a sudden shift to Athens, addressing to the Athenian audience directly. Old mythic murders (of Clytemnestra and Aegisthus by Orestes) are now judged in modern, Athenian system of justice. What Aeschylus brings together is the old and the new, the mythic and the real, the personal and the universal.
Structurally, the play is almost constructed to perfection. The first and the second plays of the trilogy parallel almost exactly to each other: in Agamemnon, Clytemnestra kills Agamemnon by gile; in The Libation Bearers, Orestes does the same thing. Agamemnon sets up the story of Orestes in the last two plays; at the same time, it also give Orestes the historical burden of his murder - Orestes' murder belongs to a chain of murders starting from Atreus' generation. The mythic world is one that is dominated by the Earthly goddess, the Furies, who considers revenge as the only method of resolving conflict. But clearly in the case of the house of Atreus, revenge does not resolve conflict; rather, violence begets violence. Revenge is not restorative but destructive, and it must be stopped. Aeschylus points out that only by civilization, with laws, can this cycle of murder be stopped. The first two plays then are a perfect set up for the final, restorative play.
Aeschylus' treatment of the chorus is done with mastery. I have so much respect for his use of the chorus (unlike Euripides). Both the chorus of old men and maids in Agamemnon and The Libation Bearers are very much involved with the action. The old men openly challenge Aegisthus, while the maids actively persuade the Nurse to change her message to Aegisthus. The chorus of The Eumenides, the Furies, however, deserves a special note. It is absolutely ingenius to have a chorus fully involved in the action of the play and to treat them as if they are one crucial character. For the most part, Greek tragedies (especially the late ones) can be played without the Chorus (e.g. Sophocles' Philoctetes). In The Eumenides, however, the chorus becomes absolutely essential. Not only are they essential, they are also casted such that their actions are emotionally intense. Their emotions become the key to the resolution of the trilogy. The old gods felt cheated by Athena, and their anger threatens to collapse Athenian civilization. This is the point when we realize The Oresteia is not so much about how Orestes is acquited of his murder of his mother, but how a civilization comes together: the old, savage ways of "natural justice" has to give way to the modern justice of law. In the play, the Furies are essentially bought off by Athena and kept underground forever. If we wish to read this psychoanalytically, the pleasure principle (of uncontrolled desires) must give way to the reality principle (of justice and law).
"Justice" is the central theme of The Oresteia, and this is precisely what makes this trilogy so impressive. Aeschylus raised this question at least half a century before Plato, and he did provide us with a comprehensive answer: justice is in the law, which is equal in all situation and to all members of society. Justice is also a Platonic ideal: everyone has the same idea of justice if only one is wise enough to realize it (e.g. Athena, the goddess of wisdom, and her best twelve citizens). At the same time, judging by the split vote between the Athenians, we can also see that the interpretation of the Platonic ideal of justice is quite another human matter: we may have the same idea available, but how we interpret it is another thing. Justice then is also a cultural compromise, specific to one place and one time.
It is certainly interesting to see that the Greeks themselves knew that The Oresteia is a rare masterpiece. The Oresteia is the first trilogy that is allowed to be reproduced at the Dionysus festival after the author's death (so it's the first "classic"); it is also the only trilogy to have survived from antiquity (the so call "Oedipus trilogy" is actually just three completely separate plays about one character). It is a play that speaks to both the ancient and the modern: for us, the play is also about justice, but justice is no longer a Platonic ideal, but culturally relative. One can read the play deconstructively, and argue that Athenian justice is white, upperclass and male justice. The Athenian jury is made up of twelve male judges; Apollo privileges Orestes' case over others because he is the son of Agamemnon, the Greeks' greatest hero; Athena herself is explicitly misogynistic, favouring the male over the female; the decisive element of the trial is not whether Orestes is wrong in killing his mom, but whether the true parent of a child is the father or the mother, which is entirely irrevelant to the justice of Orestes' action. In the modern context, The Oresteia functions the exact opposite as what it was supposed to do.
But no matter. Artistically, the play is extremely intense and exciting to watch. (Reading would be difficult because the Chorurses' lines are among the most difficult to understand in theater. I have read the play three times now, and I will honest confess that most of the time I have no idea what the chorus is saying other than the superficial plot stuff.) The structural parallel between Agamemnon and The Libation Bearers is absolutely amazing, for the differences between the two plays also play a huge part in the interpretation of the overall trilogy. It is an absolutely massive piece of drama, and, like Hamlet, The Iliad, The Aeneid, Paradise Lost, Faust, Pride and Prejudice, Middlemarch, Ulysses, The Waste Land and a few other landmark literary works, it belongs to the very identity of Western civilization and must be read at some point of one's life time.
posted by Tristan at 11:41 a.m.
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