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The Dramatic Structure of Agamemnon
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 04 July 2014
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In later antiquity it was universally held that Aeschylus was the most given, of the three fifth century Athenian tragic poets, to lavish spectacular display. This view rested on three foundations: first, consistent misinterpretation of the many jokes which Aristophanes makes in The Frogs about the archaic grandeur of Aeschylean drama — jokes which on close examination revolve almost entirely around the style of Aeschylus' language; second, the practice of importing scenes of spectacle and crowds of extras into Hellenistic and Roman productions of classical Greek tragedy; and, third, the ascription to this author of the play, Prometheus Bound, which undoubtedly calls for elaborate scenic requirements. The authenticity of Prometheus Bound has been increasingly called in question during the twentieth century: and no scholar who is prepared to accept the arguments and comparisons to be found in Mark Griffith's recent study would now care to place the composition of Prometheus Bound less than twenty years after the death of Aeschylus.
If Prometheus Bound is not to be ascribed to Aeschylus, six of his plays survive. They are distinguished by their extreme theatrical economy; no device is used in them unless it bears close relevance to the playwright's purpose and theme. In his pioneering study, The Stagecraft of Aeschylus, Oliver Taplin has drawn attention to a number of ways in which this feature is to be observed in the surviving plays; and his penetrating observations are by no means confined to the main subject of the book, which is the dramatic use made in Greek tragedy of the entrances and exits of the characters and of the chorus. But much remains to be done, before we can seriously claim to understand the genius of Aeschylus and his successors as theatre craftsmen. I want now to introduce and open up an area of debate which I find to have been seriously neglected in the work on Aeschylus which I have read.
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- Copyright © Aureal Publications 1982
References
Notes
1. The three certain examples of this practice in the Oresteia are the second chariot, laden with spoils and also bearing Kassandra, which is assumed by the Hypothesis to Agamemnon, the procession of baggage-carriers to accompany Orestes and Pylades in Choephoroi (see the MS text of 713-4), and the optional alternative line to allow Athena to enter in a chariot (Eumenides 405). See Taplin, O., The Stagecraft of Aeschylus (Oxford, 1977Google Scholar), ad locc.
2. The Authenticity of Prometheus Bound (Cambridge, 1977Google Scholar). Opinion remains divided, of course; but I must acknowledge that since reading Griffith's book I have abandoned my previous view (Ramus 6 [1977], 14 note 2Google ScholarPubMed) that the question remains one-for subjective judgment; I now share M. L. West's conviction (JHS 99 [1979], 130, q.v.CrossRefGoogle Scholar) that ‘the evidence against the Aeschylean authorship of Prometheus Bound is now overwhelming.’
3. See Frogs, 911f.
4. See Taplin (n. 1 above), ad loc.
5. See the ancient Life of Aeschylus, section 9.
6. Ibid., cf. Scholia Vetera on Eumenides 34-5, and Taplin (n. 1 above), on lines 34 and 140.
7. A full catalogue of these additions, both ancient and modern, would be very long. Perhaps the most glaring and frequently perpetrated example is the bringing on of Klytaimestra early in the parodos of Agamemnon, together with the attendants and properties necessary for her to conduct a sacrifice to the gods. This pointless violation of the convention that characters shall speak when they enter is treated more gently than it deserves by Taplin (n. 1 above) in his commentary on Agamemnon 258.
8. I assume that it was placed at the centre of the orchestra. This is, admittedly, a conjecture. But it is hard for me to imagine any other effective staging for the kommos than a tableau with Orestes and Elektra at each end of the tomb, with the chorus surrounding them and able to dance around it. The centre of the orchestra would then be the best position for the tomb for choreographic reasons; it was also the natural focus of an audience's vision in the Theatre of Dionysus, and would therefore be the strongest point at which to place this important property.
9. On this correspondence or ‘mirror-scene’ see Taplin, O., Greek Tragedy in Action (London, 1978), 122f.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
10. For further discussion of the use of visual devices in the Oresteia, cf. my ‘Aeschylus and Wagner: Stagecraft and Meaning in the Oresteia and the Ring’ Proc. AULLA XX(1980), 358–361Google Scholar.
11. Taplin (n. 1 above), 49f and 470-76.
12. Verrall, A. W. (ed.), The Agamemnon of Aeschylus (London, 1889), xiv ff.Google Scholar
13. Of the three surviving plays written before the Oresteia, only The Suppliants lays any particular emphasis on the place where it is enacted.
14. Jones, J., On Aristotle and Greek Tragedy (London, 1962), 82fGoogle Scholar.
15. Verrall (n. 12 above), xiv.
16. Lattimore, R., Story Patterns in Greek Tragedy (London, 1964Google Scholar).
17. It is no accident that the book which advances Lattimore's line of enquiry most convincingly is a monograph on Euripides – Burnett's, Ann PippinCatastrophe Survived (Oxford, 1973Google Scholar).
18. Cf. Postgate, Raymond (ed.), The Agamemnon of Aeschylus (Cambridge, 1969), 19Google Scholar.
19. Sophocles put this custom to brilliant use at King Oedipus 964f, where the Corinthian messenger, after informing Oedipus and Jocasta that Polybus is dead, retreats respectfully to allow the king and queen to discuss the news. But he remains within earshot, to see whether —as he hopes — his news has placed them in a good humour. This leads him to interrupt their conversation, when he sees that Oedipus remains worried, because his mother is still alive; ‘And who is this woman because of whom you are so terrified?’ (989). This well-intentioned intervention causes the revelation of the truth to Jocasta, since the messenger, along with his additional ‘good tidings’ that Merope is not Oedipus' mother, tells them enough to make her certain that she herself is.
20. Jones (n. 14 above), 111 f; Vickers, Brian, Towards Greek Tragedy (London, 1977), 347f.Google Scholar
21. Medicean scholion to Agamemnon line 1.
22. Odyssey 3.265f and 4.521 f.
23. This point was first made by Schlegel; see Vickers (n. 20 above), 358.
24. Cf. n. 7 above.
25. I have discussed the sequence of their thoughts and feelings in detail in ‘Agamemnon at Aulis: a study in the Oresteia’, Ramus 4 (1975), 17fCrossRefGoogle Scholar.
26. Jones (n. 14 above), 85.
27. N.b. line 968. (And cf. Klytaimestra to Kassandra at 1055!) The centrality of the hearth has already been emphasised by the metaphor of the ‘smokey house’ at 774, and it is triumphantly reiterated by Klytaimestra when she hails Aigisthos as the new lord ‘kindling the fire on my hearth’, at 1434-5. (A claim which is duly undermined, in the same terms, by the Choephoroi chorus at 49 and 629, on which see Jones, n. 14 above, 95n.)
28. As well as the hearth, the altar is central to this scene also: 1037f and 1055f. After this preparation, Klytaimestra's perversion of the vocabulary of ritual sacrifice, in her victory-speech at 1372f (cf. Zeitlin, F., ‘The Motif of the Corrupted Sacrifice in Aeschylus' Oresteia’, TAPA [1965], 463–508Google Scholar) is deeply expected.
29. This theory was widely held in the earlier years of this century. For a succinct exposition cf. Murray, Gilbert, Aeschylus: The Creator of Tragedy (Oxford, 1940), 4–9Google Scholar, and for an attempt at revival Kott, Jan, The Eating of the Gods (New York, 1973Google Scholar).
30. Cf. my review article ‘Aeschylus in Melbourne: Towards a Lyric Theatre’, Meanjin 33.2 (1974), 189fGoogle Scholar.
31. With Anna Volska as Elektra and Colin Friels as Orestes, this scene was in many ways the high point of the Nimrod Theatre Company's 1980 production of the trilogy in Sydney, directed by John Bell.