The Oresteia

[bluevictim]

I really enjoyed reading the Oresteia. One can spend a lifetime studying background material for the trilogy (and the trilogy itself), but I think the best preparation is just to read the plays. The whole trilogy is probably about a hundred fifty pages, so it wouldn't take long to read. In my opinion Greek tragedies stand quite well by themselves.

It is likely that there is some kind of introductory material in your edition. If it is short, read the introduction first, then read the plays; if the introduction is long, I'd suggest skimming it at first and coming back to it after you've read the trilogy. I have always found these introductions (even the good ones) much more interesting after my first reading of the play than before. An adequate introduction should have a basic summary of the story of the house of Atreus, and the basic story of the Trojan war. A good introduction will discuss the peculiarities of Aeschylus' treatment of the legends, and give some background information about the context of Greek tragedies. I'd hope that all of this will be thoroughly discussed in your class, though, and in more detail than a typical introduction to a translation. For example, I think the introduction by Richmond Lattimore in The Complete Greek Tragedies series edited by Greene and Lattimore is more than adequate. If you're really hungry for background material, the introductions in the commentaries by Denniston and Page (for Agamemnon), Garvie (for Choephori), and Sommerstein (for Eumenides) have plenty of information; you should be able to find these commentaries in any decent university library.

I would think that your class will, in fact, dissect the play, but isn't that why you want to take the class? I wouldn't be too worried that you haven't read the entire Iliad and Odyssey. Of course it doesn't hurt to be familiar with the Homeric epics, but I don't think it's that critical. That applies even moreso to the other Greek tragedies, since Aeschylus was the oldest of the Greek tragedians whose plays survived.

As far as it being a hard core read, if you have a good translation, the language will be quite opaque. Aeschylus is infamous for difficult expressions.

After your class (or during) I'd really enjoy reading your thoughts about the Oresteia. HTH

[matthewlha]

Aeschylus is amazing, and the Oresteia is his crowning jewel, a great trilogy that runs a thematic gauntlet that includes crime, endless retribution, moral equivalency, and forgiviness. For my money, Aeschylus is far more complex that Sophocles, who usually ends up just pointing out the main theme in a line somewhere near the end ("Now I know that it is by the laws of heaven that man must live"). Aeschylus is never so clear-cut or didactic.
Plus, the plays are amazingly fast reads. And entertaining. Check out the speech in "Agamemnon" about the lion cub that gets raised in a domestic household to see what I mean.
You don't need tons of background. I'll give it to you now in a short paragraph: Paris steals Menelaus' wife, Helen, and takes her back to Troy. Menelaus gets his brother Agamemnon, king over the loosely aligned Greek nation-states, to help him get her back. On the way to Troy, they lose the wind and can't sail. To get it back, Agamemnon lies to his wife, telling her that he wants his daughter Iphigenia so that she can marry Achillles. His wife sends Iphigenia and Agamemenon brutally sacrifices her and off they sail to fight for ten years. Agamemnon's wife never forgets, and in the meantime, she begins an adulterous affair with his cousin, and plots her revenge. When Agamemnon gets back, he adds insult to injury by bringing along the king of Troy's daughter as a sex slave (her name is Cassandra, and she is cursed to know the future but have no one believe her). And that's pretty much where Aeschylus starts. There's some other stuff about a family curse, but you don't need it at the beginning.
Take the class. There's a reason these stories have been around for 2500 years, and it's not because dusty old teachers decided they are important. It's because they are actually good.

[grace86]

Thank you Matthewlha and Bluevictim. And welcome to the forum Matthewlha. All this information really helps. Well I am enrolled in the class. It is for an English class that I have to read it, and then I think it is going to come up in my literature class.

I read somewhere that the best way to understand the greek plays are to just read through them first. I looked at a bit of information on them and your guys' information really helps. I had just never heard of the trilogy of his and wanted more background.

Thanks again.

[grace86]

I ended up reading Iliad, Odyssey, and I am reading Andromache. It is interesting how all the stories connect. I read part of Agamemnon before my english class starts it...so thanks for the background readings guys (my world lit class helped as well)

[bluevictim]

I ended up reading Iliad, Odyssey, and I am reading Andromache.

That's great! I hope you enojyed them. How did you like the Oresteia? Anyone familiar with the Greek tragedies will probably get a kick out of this poem by A.E. Housman. It cracks me up every time I read it! (maybe I'm easily amused)

[grace86]

That's great! I hope you enojyed them. How did you like the Oresteia? Anyone familiar with the Greek tragedies will probably get a kick out of this poem by A.E. Housman. It cracks me up every time I read it! (maybe I'm easily amused)

I am taking a literature class and an english class. In english is where I will be reading the Oresteia in about two weeks. For my literature class, the funny thing is I ended up being assigned to read all the works that everyone here suggested I read so as to be familiar with the tragedy. So I also ended up learning about the background to the Oresteia through my lit class, I will be prepared for my english class...lol..

I will definitely let you know what I thought about it, though I am sure I will love it.

[grace86]

For both the literature class and the English class, I only ended up being required to read Agamemnon, but I went on ahead and read the rest. The whole reason we were reading it for English was to discuss the idea of free will within society, and how much of our lives are governed by free will or fate or by the gods. The ideas were very well illustrated in Agamemnon, but I think reading the remaining plays just put the icing on the cake.

I managed to get another student to read the Iliad and the Odyssey. I also got him to read the Robert Fagles translation because the one we had for class was just awful.

But I was really glad for the opportunity to dive into Greek mythology this past semester. One can see the relevence of reading such plays today.

[bluevictim]

For both the literature class and the English class, I only ended up being required to read Agamemnon, but I went on ahead and read the rest. The whole reason we were reading it for English was to discuss the idea of free will within society, and how much of our lives are governed by free will or fate or by the gods. The ideas were very well illustrated in Agamemnon, but I think reading the remaining plays just put the icing on the cake.

That's great that you read the whole trilogy even though it wasn't assigned. I hope you enjoyed it.

It's interesting that your instructor decided to use Agamemnon to seed a discussion about free will and fate. It seems more common for people to use Oedipus Rex (by Sophocles), and the Oresteia usually provokes discussions about justice. Did anything come out of the discussion that you felt was particularly insightful?

I think the trilogy very acutely depicts the perplexities that arise when we contemplate justice. To me, it seems to present a rather non-Platonic view that our civilized notions of justice which acts through courts and laws are still intimately related to a need to satisfy uncivilized chthonic urges.

[damianswife]

Hi all. Aeschylus' Agamemnon was my introduction to Greek tragedy and I found the Chorus hard to understand at first but after reading and re reading it all "clicked" into place. I am passionate about this particular Tragedy because of the magnificent character of Clytemnestra who, IMHO knocks the spots off Lady Macbeth.

[bluevictim]

Hi all. Aeschylus' Agamemnon was my introduction to Greek tragedy and I found the Chorus hard to understand at first but after reading and re reading it all "clicked" into place. I am passionate about this particular Tragedy because of the magnificent character of Clytemnestra who, IMHO knocks the spots off Lady Macbeth.

Yes, I agree, and she is fascinating in all three plays of the trilogy (and the only character appearing in all three plays).

[nessgavin]

I'm in the middle of the Libation Bearers. I found the Oresteia difficult to get into at first but listening to it on CD was a great help. All of the comments have been wonderful.

There is something really disturbing about the trilogy. I think it does connect us to a kind of primitive mentality that we'd rather not deal with but is really there, deep within ourselves. Wanting to kill our parents and at the same time loving them deeply, seems to be part of it.

Being caught in a no win situation and yet being responsible for the consequences of any choice we make, is another uncomfortable but very true issue. Sophie's Choice? Right? No real choice. Damned if you do, damned if you don't. Someone in one of the plays says that he who acts, suffers. But he who doesn't act suffers as well. That's tragedy.