Piety in Macbeth and the Oresteia Piety has vari

The idea of piety to ancient beliefs was present in the origins of Greek drama (Gill 2003). Begun as a religious observance in honour of Dionysus, Greek tragedy reflected the central values of the culture that was at its peak of greatness in the short but historically influential reign of Pericles in the 5th century B.C. when Aeschylus wrote the trilogy known as the Oresteia.

The Greek drama started as choral singing by performers and audience, with a chorus of fifty people or more who reacted to the speeches of one or two actors. Gradually the chorus received less emphasis. It was Aeschylus who is credited with added a third actor. Wearing masks with open mouths and str

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higenia (by Clytemnestra) to fulfil a prophecy and go attack Troy. Agamemnon is basically about how he returns with the clairvoyant Cassandra and is murdered by his wife for killing Iphigenia. Clytemnestra is justified in her murder by the traditional blood revenge values of the Furies, because ô he had the heart to sacrifice his daughter to bless the warö (Agamemnon lines 222-223). Clytemnestra believes she has acted morally, but the curse of the house of Atreus remains. To his credit Orestes is not comfortable with the edict of the oracle of Apollo to kill his mother to avenge her killing of his father. But he believes in so doing he is also acting morally, because Apollo has put him up to it. In the Eumenides he is tormented constantly by the Furies for his crime of matricide. The curse is finally lifted when Orestes is absolved by a trial at the Areopagus, based on their interpretation (however sexist) that his father is the more important parent, and the Furies are transformed into more benign Eumenides. Now let us imaginatively fly through time and space to Elizabethan London, and a completely different context. Here plays were profane, secular entertainments for profit, and the unruly spectators milled around eating
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Some common words found in the essay are:
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Approximate Word count = 1280
Approximate Pages = 5 (250 words per page)