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Justice in the "Oresteia" Aeschylus was a

Aeschylus was a great 5th century playright who plumbed the deepest recesses of the human soul. He was ethically aware as few human beings have ever been, and if he did not come up with solutions for the evil that lurks potentially in every human breast, at least he outlined its extent, described it accurately, and suggested more moral alternatives.

Begun as a religious observance in honour of Dionysus, Greek tragedy reflected the central values of the culture. It was during the short but historically influential reign of Pericles in the 5th century B.C. that Aeschylus wrote the trilogy known as the Oresteia, probably greatest and most quintessential Greek tragedy that has survived from that era. This gripping series of three plays tells of the endless cycles of violence unleashed in the House of Atreus, which stretch across several generations. The curse on the descendants of Atreus is ended only by the intervention of the goddess Athene, described by Aeschylus in the "Eumenides", where Orestes' trial by jury due her and Apollo's intervention restores a much-needed civilizing influence to this classic blood feud.

In "Agamemnon" the king returns from the Trojan War with his new consort, the clairvoyant prophetess Cassandra, only to be murdered in his bath by his wife Clytemnestra, who hates him for sacrificing their daughter Iphigenia to appease the goddess Artemis. In her bitterness she says "àour child is gone, not standing by our side, the bond of our dearest pledges, mine and yours; by all rights our child should be hereà" (136). In a futher plot wrinkle, she is aided by Aegisthus, son of Atreus' brother Thyestes, who has the double motive of avenging Atreus' murder of his two brothers, (whom he subsequently fed to Thyestes) and seizing the kingdom of Argos for himself.

The theme of the "Libation Bearers" recounts the consequences of the oracle's decree that Orestes, the young son of Agamemnon, avenge his father's deat...

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Justice in the "Oresteia" Aeschylus was a. (1969, December 31). In LotsofEssays.com. Retrieved 10:46, March 28, 2024, from https://www.lotsofessays.com/viewpaper/1704332.html