"The Oresteia of Aeschylus"

Paper Summary:

This paper explains that the trilogy of the great classic dramas by Aeschylus, which comprise the "Oresteia", embodies the competing concepts of justice as administered by a stable and unified state versus justice as administered at an individual or family level that arise out of revenge. The author points out that these dramas show the intense and often brutal conflict that existed between these two very different views of law. The paper relates that, in the end, the dramas succeed not as much in depicting an existing social reality but rather in idealistically propagandizing in favor of the importance of an objective administration of justice. The author examines each of the three Aeschylus plays in order to keep an essentially linear presentation in respect to its dramatic unfoldment and resolution.

Table of Contents
"Agamemnon"
"Choephori"
"Eumenides"

From the Paper:

"The core problem of subjective justice, or the rule of personal vengeance, is of course its unending cyclical nature ("Act for act, wound for wound!" cries Clytemnestra in the Agamemnon, l. 1555.) Crimes are punished, but the punishment itself becomes the seed of a future crime which itself requires further vengeance, with no obvious end. This has long been recognized as a universal situation with regard to this sort of justice, and the tragedies of the Greeks, most notably the trilogy herein examined, make it their theme to address this ancient cycle."

Sample of Sources Used:

• Fagles, Robert (Trans.) The Oresteia of Aeschylus. New York: Viking Press 1966.

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