Envisaging the Past Behind Aeschylus’ Agamemnon

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DC Field	Value
dc.identifier	ECF_chapter_15457
dc.contributor.author	Taplin Oliver
dc.title	Envisaging the Past Behind Aeschylus’ Agamemnon
dc.type	Chapter
dc.language.iso	en
dc.description.abstract	This paper looks at the ways that Aeschylus’ Agamemnon conjures up the past – the ‘back-story’ – and asks how, or how far, this can be conveyed for modern audiences. The two most prominent episodes, evoked in very different ways, are the feast of child-flesh served up to Thyestes by Atreus, and Agamemnon’s sacrifice of Iphigeneia at Aulis. Generally speaking productions from the last 50 years have made little of the Thyestean feast, and much of the figure of Iphigeneia. This is illustrated from the productions directed by Ariane Mnouchkine in Paris in 1991 and by Katie Mitchell in London in 1999. While it is not obvious why so little Thyestes’ feast is evoked beyond its repellent ‘Senecan’ horror, the emphasis on Iphigeneia is clearly related to an increasing (and in my view justified) concentration on the figure of Clytemnestra.
dc.relation.ispartof	Lexis Supplements
dc.relation.ispartof	Lexis Studies in Greek and Latin Literature
dc.publisher	Edizioni Ca’ Foscari - Venice University Press, Fondazione Università Ca’ Foscari
dc.issued	2023-07-07
dc.dateAccepted	2022-10-20
dc.dateSubmitted	2022-10-13
dc.identifier.uri	http://edizionicafoscari.it/en/edizioni4/libri/978-88-6969-709-8/envisaging-the-past-behind-aeschylus-agamemnon/
dc.identifier.doi	10.30687/978-88-6969-709-8/001
dc.identifier.issn	2210-8866
dc.identifier.eissn	2724-3362
dc.identifier.isbn	978-88-6969-736-4
dc.identifier.eisbn	978-88-6969-709-8
dc.rights	Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International Public License
dc.rights.uri	http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
item.fulltext	with fulltext
item.grantfulltext	open
dc.peer-review	yes
dc.subject	Agamemnon
dc.subject	Iphigenia
dc.subject	Modern productions of Greek tragedy
dc.subject	Thyestes

Chapter
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Envisaging the Past Behind Aeschylus’ Agamemnon

Oliver Taplin University of Oxford, UK

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abstract

This paper looks at the ways that Aeschylus’ Agamemnon conjures up the past – the ‘back-story’ – and asks how, or how far, this can be conveyed for modern audiences. The two most prominent episodes, evoked in very different ways, are the feast of child-flesh served up to Thyestes by Atreus, and Agamemnon’s sacrifice of Iphigeneia at Aulis. Generally speaking productions from the last 50 years have made little of the Thyestean feast, and much of the figure of Iphigeneia. This is illustrated from the productions directed by Ariane Mnouchkine in Paris in 1991 and by Katie Mitchell in London in 1999. While it is not obvious why so little Thyestes’ feast is evoked beyond its repellent ‘Senecan’ horror, the emphasis on Iphigeneia is clearly related to an increasing (and in my view justified) concentration on the figure of Clytemnestra.

Published

July 7, 2023

Accepted

Oct. 20, 2022

Submitted

Oct. 13, 2022

Language

ISBN (PRINT)

978-88-6969-736-4

ISBN (EBOOK)

978-88-6969-709-8

Keywords: Iphigenia • Thyestes • Agamemnon • Modern productions of Greek tragedy

permalink: http://doi.org/10.30687/978-88-6969-709-8/001

Copyright: © 2023 Oliver Taplin. This is an open-access work distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction is permitted, provided that the original author(s) and the copyright owner(s) are credited and that the original publication is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. The license allows for commercial use. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.

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