Aeschylus as “the father of tragedy. WITH

15.06.2019

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The tragedy before Aeschylus still contained too few dramatic elements and retained a close connection with the lyric poetry from which it arose. It was dominated by the songs of the choir, and it could not yet reproduce the true dramatic conflict. All roles were played by one actor, and therefore the meeting of the two characters could never be shown. Only the introduction of the second actor made it possible to dramatize the action. This important change was made by Aeschylus. That is why it is customary to consider him the ancestor of the tragic genre. VG Belinsky called him "the creator of the Greek tragedy" 1, and F. Engels - "the father of tragedy."

The lifetime of Aeschylus (525-456 BC) coincides with a very important period in the history of Athens and all of Greece. During the VI century. BC NS. the slave system was formed and established in the Greek city-states, and at the same time crafts and trade developed. However, the basis of economic life was agriculture, and the labor of free producers still predominated and "slavery had not yet had time to take over production to any significant extent."

The struggle for the freedom of the fatherland caused a patriotic upsurge, and therefore the pathos of heroism permeates all the memories of these events, stories about the heroic deeds and even about the help of the gods. Such, for example, are the stories of Herodotus in his "Muses". Under these conditions, in 476 Aeschylus created his second historical tragedy "The Phoenicians", and in 472 - the tragedy "Persians". Both tragedies were dedicated to the glorification of the victory at Salamis, and one can imagine what impression they made on the audience, most of whom were participants in the battle. Aeschylus himself was not only a witness, but also an active participant in the famous events of his time. Therefore, it is quite understandable that all his world outlook and poetic pathos were determined by these events.

Towards the end of his life, Aeschylus had to observe serious changes both in foreign policy and in the internal life of the state. The initiator of reforms in Athens - Ephialtes was killed by political opponents. Aeschylus responded to these events in his last work "Eumenides", taking the side of the Areopagus. At the same time, the direction of Athens' foreign policy also changed.

The time we have described was a period of the beginning flourishing of Attic culture, which found expression in the development of production in its various forms, crafts - from its lowest types up to construction and plastic arts, science and poetry. Aeschylus glorified the work in the image of Prometheus, who brought fire to people and was revered as the patron saint of pottery.

The works of Sophocles

Sophokles is an Athenian playwright, tragedian.

Sophocles reportedly wrote 123 dramas, but of these, only seven have survived, which apparently were arranged chronologically in the following order: "Ajax," ”,“ Philoctetus ”and“ Oedipus at Colon ”. The dates of the performances have not been set exactly.

The plot of "Ajax" is borrowed from the cyclical poem "The Little Iliad". After the death of Achilles, Ajax, as the most valiant warrior after him, counted on receiving his armor. But they were given to Odysseus. Then Ajax, seeing this as an intrigue on the part of Agamemnon and Menelaus, decided to kill them. However, the goddess Athena clouded his mind, and instead of his enemies, he killed a herd of sheep and cows. Coming to his senses and seeing what he had done, Ajax, conscious of his shame, decided to commit suicide. His wife Tekmessa and the faithful warriors who make up the chorus, fearing for him, closely monitor his actions. But he, having deceived their vigilance, goes to the deserted shore and throws himself on the sword. Agamemnon and Menelaus think to take revenge on the dead enemy, leaving his body without burial. However, his brother Tevkr stands up for the rights of the deceased. He is supported by the noble enemy himself - Odysseus. Thus, the matter ends in a moral victory for Ajax.

Elektra is similar in plot to Aeschylus's Hoefor. But the main character here is not Orestes, but his sister Electra. Orestes, having come to Argos, accompanied by his faithful Uncle and friend Pilad, hears the screams of Electra, but God ordered revenge by cunning, and therefore no one should know about his arrival. Elektra tells the women of the choir about her difficult situation in the house, since she cannot stand the murderers 'mockery of the memory of her father, and reminds them of Orestes' awaiting revenge. Elektra's sister Chrysofemis, sent by her mother to make propitious sacrifices at her father's grave, brings the news that the mother and Aegisthus decided to plant Electra in the dungeon. After that, Clytemnestra comes out and prays to Apollo to avert trouble. At this time, Uncle Orestes appears under the guise of a messenger from a friendly king and reports the death of Orestes. The news plunges Electra into despair, while Clytemnestra triumphs, freed from the fear of revenge. Meanwhile, Chrysothemis, returning from her father's grave, tells Electra that she saw burial sacrifices there, which no one else can bring except Orestes. Electra refutes her guesses, passing on the news of his death to her, and offers to take revenge by common forces. Since Chrysothemis refuses, Electra declares that she will do it alone. Orestes, disguised as a messenger from Phocis, brings a funeral urn and, recognizing his sister in the grieving woman, opens up to her. After that, he kills his mother and Aegisthus. Unlike the tragedy of Aeschylus, Sophocles' Orestes does not experience any torment, and the tragedy ends with the triumph of victory.

Philoctet is based on a plot from the Lesser Iliad. Philoctetes went on a campaign near Troy along with other Greek heroes, but on the way to the island of Lemnos he was stung by a snake, from the bite of which an unhealed wound was left, emitting a terrible stench. To get rid of Philoctetes, who had become a burden for the army, the Greeks, on the advice of Odysseus, left him alone on the island. Only with the help of the bow and arrows given to him by Hercules, the ailing Philoctetus sustained his existence. But the Greeks received a prediction that without the arrows of Hercules, Troy could not be taken. Odysseus undertook to get them. Going to Lemnos with the young Neoptolemus, the son of Achilles, he forces him to go to Philoctetus and, having crept into his confidence, take possession of his weapon. Neoptolemus does so, but then, seeing the helplessness of the hero who confided in him, he repents of his deception and returns the weapon to Philoctetus, hoping to convince him to voluntarily go to the aid of the Greeks. But Philoctetes, having learned about the new deception of Odysseus, flatly refuses. However, according to the myth, he still took part in the capture of Troy. Sophocles resolves this contradiction through a special technique, which was often used by Euripides: while Philoctetes is about to go home with the help of Neoptolemus, the deified Hercules (the so-called "god from the machine" - deus ex machina) appears in front of them in height and gives Philoctet the command gods that he should go to Troy, and as a reward he was promised healing from the disease. The plot was previously handled by Aeschylus and Euripides.

From the cycle of myths about Hercules, the plot of the tragedy "Trakhineyanka" is taken. This tragedy is named after the chorus of women in the city of Trakhin, where Deianira, the wife of Hercules, lives. It has been fifteen months since Hercules left her, giving her this period for waiting. She sends her son Gill to search, but then a messenger comes from Hercules with the news of his imminent return and with the booty he is sending, and among this booty is the captive Iola. Deianira learns by chance that Iola is the royal daughter and that for her sake Hercules undertook a campaign and ravaged the city of Echalia. Wanting to regain the lost love of her husband, Deianira sends him a shirt soaked in the blood of the centaur Nessus; many years earlier, Nessus, dying from the arrow of Hercules, had told her that his blood was so powerful. But suddenly she receives the news that Hercules is dying, as the Shirt stuck to the body and began to shoot him. In desperation, she takes her own life. When then the suffering Hercules is brought, he wants to execute his murderer wife, but learns that she has already died and that his death is the revenge of the centaur he once killed. Then he orders himself to be carried to the top of Mount Eta and there to be burned. Thus, the tragedy is based on a fatal misunderstanding.

The tragedies of the Theban cycle are best known. The first in the order of the development of the plot should be the tragedy "King Oedipus". Oedipus, unaware of it, committed terrible crimes - he killed father Laia and married mother Jocasta. The gradual disclosure of these crimes is the content of the tragedy. Having become king of Thebes, Oedipus reigned happily for a number of years. But suddenly a pestilence began in the country, and the oracle said that the reason for this was the stay of the murderer of the former king Laia in the country. Oedipus is taken to the search. It turns out that the only witness to the murder was a slave who now grazes the royal flocks in the mountains. Oedipus gives the order to bring him. Meanwhile, the soothsayer Tiresias announces to Oedipus that he himself is the murderer. But this seems so incredible to Oedipus that he sees in it an intrigue on the part of his brother-in-law Creon. Jocasta, wanting to calm Oedipus and show the falsity of divination, tells how she had a son from Laia, whom they, fearing the fulfillment of terrible predictions, decided to destroy, and how, many years later, his father was killed by some robbers at the crossroads of three roads. With these words, Oedipus recalls that he himself once killed some respectable husband in the same place. His suspicion creeps in whether the man he killed was a Theban king. But Jocasta calms him, referring to the words of the shepherd that there were several robbers. At this time, the Messenger, who came from Corinth, reports the death of King Polybus, whom Oedipus considered his father, and then it turns out that Oedipus was only his adopted child. And then, from the interrogation of the Theban shepherd, it is revealed that Oedipus was the very child whom Laius ordered to be killed, and that, therefore, he, Oedipus, is the murderer of his father and is married to his mother. In despair, Jocasta takes her own life, and Oedipus blinds himself and condemns himself to exile.

The plot of "Antigone" is outlined in the final part of the tragedy "Seven Against Thebes" by Aeschylus. When both brothers - Eteocles and Polynices - fell in single combat, Creon, assuming control of the state, forbade the body of Polynices to be buried under pain of death. However, his sister Antigone, despite this, performs the burial ceremony. During interrogation, she explains that she did it in the name of a higher, unwritten law. Creon condemns her to death. His son Gemon, Antigone's fiancé, tries in vain to stop. She is walled up in an underground crypt. The soothsayer Tiresias tries to reason with Creon and, in view of his stubbornness, predicts the loss of his closest people as punishment. Alarmed, Creon comes to his senses and decides to free Antigone, but, having come to the crypt, does not find her alive. Gemon is stabbed over her corpse. Creon's wife Eurydice, having learned about the death of her son, also commits suicide. Creon, left alone and morally broken, curses his folly and the joyless life that awaits him.

The satire drama "Pathfinders" is written on a plot from the Homeric hymn to Hermes. It tells how he stole Apollo's wonderful cows. Apollo, in his quest, turns to the satyr chorus for help. And those, attracted by the sounds of the lyre invented by Hermes, guess who the kidnapper is, and find the abducted herd in a cave.

Aeschylus (Aischylos) (about 525, Eleusis, - 456 BC, Sicily), ancient Greek. playwright. Descended from the old aristocracy, family. Participated in the Greco-Persian wars. In 484 he won his first victory in drama. competitions; subsequently, he was the winner of the playwright competition 12 more times. In antiquity it was known approx. 80 dramatic. manuf. E., Only 7 survived: "Persians" (472), "Seven against Thebes" (467), trilogy "Oresteia" (458; "Agamemnon", "Choephora", "Eumenides"); there is no consensus about the time of the creation of the tragedies "The Supplicant, or the Begging" and "Chained Prometheus". Of the rest of E.'s tragedies, fragments have come down that rarely exceed 5-10 verses; relatively large fragments from the satire dramas "Pulling the Net" and "Ambassadors, or Isthmians" publ. in egypt editions. papyri in 1933 and 1941. Creativity E. belongs to the period will end, the establishment of Athenian democracy (1st half of the 5th century BC) and reflects a reappraisal of the world outlook. the principles of the tribal system. The hero of his tragedies is a person who is independent in his behavior and responsible for his actions. The essence of the tragic in E. is revealed with the greatest clarity in "Oresteia": the curse of the Atrides gravitating over the house of Agamemnon is carried out only because the members of this house (Agamemnon, Clytemnestra) are themselves guilty of committing the gravest crimes against divine and human laws. The bloody string of vengeance-crimes is terminated thanks to the intervention of the court of the Athenian Areopagus, whose decision is consecrated by the goddess Athena and symbolizes the victory of the democrats. statehood over archaic. the law of patrimonial revenge. The triumph of the principles of patriotism and citizenship. equality of rights over "barbaric" despotism is DOS. the content of the "Persians" and is also reflected in "The Seven Against Thebes" and "The Petitioners". Humanistic. the content of E.'s creativity with excludes, vividly revealed in the tragedy of Prometheus - "the noblest saint and martyr in the philosophical calendar" (K. Marx, see K. Marx and F. Engels, From early works, 1956, p. 25).

"The father of tragedy", E. was a major innovator in the field of arts and forms. Choral and lyric. parties with the participation of actors play the most important drama in his tragedies. role, whipping up an atmosphere of excitement and anxiety and bringing the action to a climax. By introducing a second actor, E. significantly increased the role of the individual, the characters, among which such titanic characters stand out. images like Eteocles, Prometheus, Clytemnestra. The tragedies of E. were well known in ancient Rome; some of them served as a prototype for the production. Ennia, Action, Seneca. In the literature and art of modern times, the image of Prometheus is widely reflected.

V.N. Yarkho.

Used materials from the Great Soviet Encyclopedia. In 30 volumes, Ch. ed. A.M. Prokhorov. Ed. 3rd. T. 29. Chagan - Aix-les-Bains. - M., Soviet Encyclopedia. - 1978.

The further development of the tragic genre is associated with the names of three great Athenian poets: Aeschylus, Sophocles and Euripides. The time of their life can be judged by the fact that in 480 BC. NS. Aeschylus, apparently, participated in the Battle of Salamis, Sophocles sang in the chorus of young men at the celebration of this victory, and Euripides, according to legend, was allegedly born at this time.

Aeschylus - "the father of tragedy", as Engels calls him, came from a noble family. His political views were conservative. Of the 90 tragedies written by Aeschylus, according to the ancients, only 7 have survived to our time. Despite the mythological subjects used in these tragedies, Aeschylus responds to the most pressing issues of his time. Thus, the main theme of Aeschylus's trilogy "Oresteia", consisting of the tragedies "Agamemnon", "Hoephoros" and "Eumenides", is the struggle between the dying maternal and the victorious paternal right. The content of this trilogy boils down to the following. Clytemnestra, together with her beloved Aegistus, kills her husband Agamemnon, who returned after the capture of Troy. In revenge for the death of his father, Orestes kills his mother and her lover. For this, the goddesses of revenge, the serpentine Erinnias, are persecuting him. The guardians of the ancient beginnings of matriarchy, they do not consider Clytemnestra guilty, for "the husband she killed was a stranger by blood." On the side of Orestes, new gods - Apollo and Athena, have trampled the "tablet of ancient truths". But Athena manages to "bow down the wild goddesses of unyielding wrath." The Areopagus founded by her justifies Orestes. Having turned into the good Eumenides, Erinnias remain in Athens - they become their patron goddesses. In the mouth of Athena, the author put a covenant that expressed his own political views:

Protect the city as vigilantly, citizens, From anarchy as from autocracy.

In the tragedy "Chained Prometheus" Aeschylus gives the image of a courageous fighter against the gods, for the happiness of mankind. The image of Prometheus then, for many centuries, inspired the leaders of progress in the struggle against reaction. The tragedy "The Persians", written not on a mythological, but on an actual historical plot, reflects the triumph of the Athenians, who won a historic victory in the struggle against Persia, and contains a detailed description of the Salamis battle.

The tragedies of Aeschylus were written in the techniques of semi-epic choral lyrics, but in this area Aeschylus proved to be an innovator. In the old tragedy, the main character was the choir, which entered into dialogue with a single actor; For the first time, Aeschylus brought out two actors at the same time and thus created an actor's dialogue independent of the chorus, which then began to develop rapidly due to the choral part. The subsequent development of theatrical art took place, however, so quickly that the Athenians of the end of the 5th century. BC NS. Aeschylus, in comparison with Sophocles and especially Euripides, was already represented as a poet of the distant past. So, in the comedy of Aristophanes "The Frogs", he personifies the heroic, but already irrevocably gone time.

The World History. Volume II. M., 1956, p. 94-95.

"Father of Tragedy"

Aeschylus (525-456 BC). The oldest Greek playwright, who is called "the father of tragedy", was born in the city of Eleusis in the family of a prominent landowner. He participated as a heavily armed warrior in the battles with the Persians at Marathon and Salamis. In 500 BC. staged his play for the first time and since then won the playwright competition 13 times. Twice, for some unknown reason, he left Athens, to the tyrant Hieron in Sicily, where he died.

Aeschylus wrote about 90 plays - although only 7 of them have come down to us. In some of his works he tells about real events and characters ("The Persians"), but more often mythical heroes act in them, which does not mean that they are far from reality. On the contrary, it becomes possible to talk about the eternal, about the highest manifestations of human feelings and thoughts.

The power of fate, fate, the will of the gods is opposed by a free man who does not lose his own dignity even in mortal danger. Aeschylus saw humiliation and shame of man in the fact that the power of usury and money was established. He glorified the stubbornness of people fighting for justice, for freedom, for their homeland. In the tragedy "Persians" the call sounds:

Forward, sons of Hellas, rush into battle! Free the altars of your own gods, Children and your wives. After all, the battle is for everything!

A true hymn to the greatness of a creative person who is ready to go to pain for the good of people is the tragedy of Aeschylus "Chained Prometheus." The main character performs a feat, knowing that not honors, but troubles await him:

After all, before I myself foresaw everything to come, and there are no Unexpected disasters for me. I have to endure My fate easily: Necessity cannot be overcome. But it's hard to keep silent and talk About my fate. After all, I, unfortunate, Suffer for the good deeds of mortals. I have stolen the divine flame ... "

“Not only natural fire brought Prometheus to people, but also the light of knowledge, because -

Used to be people

They looked and did not see and, hearing,

Have not heard, in some sleepy dreams

Dragged out life ...

Prometheus taught people arts and crafts, the science of numbers and literacy, invented ships, and for all this he was severely punished by Zeus. The king of the gods is presented by Aeschylus as a despot, alien to sympathy and justice. Prometheus boldly denounces him:

As soon as he sat on his father's throne, Now he began to distribute honor and power among the new gods, And he forgot about the unfortunate mortals. And even more: to destroy the whole human race and to plant a new one. And no one rose up for the poor mortals, And I dared ...

In response to the offer - the order of Hermes to inform Zeus about who will overthrow him, Prometheus, who has the gift of prophecy, answers proudly:

Oh, how it sounds pompous and proud

All this speech of the servant, the gods.

Do you think new kings

Why should you be blessed forever in strongholds?

But haven't I seen how from Olympus

Have two tyrants fallen? And I will see

As the third, now ruling, will fall -

The most shameful and swift fall.

Indeed, the gods are not warriors, and with the decline of Greece, Zeus gave way to Jupiter, and even later all the ancient deities were "overthrown" by Christianity. Whatever people imagine of unknown heavenly and earthly rulers, the main thing that justifies their existence is self-esteem, spiritual freedom and creative daring. One of the first to announce this was Aeschylus.

Balandin R.K. One hundred great geniuses / R.K. Balandin. - M .: Veche, 2012.

The first tragedian

Aeschylus (525–456 BC), Greek playwright, the first of the three great Athenian tragedians of the 5th century. BC. Our information about the life of Aeschylus goes back mainly to the biography, preceded by his tragedies in the manuscript of the 11th century. According to this data, Aeschylus was born in 525 BC. in Eleusis, his father was Euphorion, who belonged to the ancient Athenian aristocracy, the Eupatrides. Aeschylus fought with the Persians at Marathon (this fact is proudly noted in his epitaph) and probably also participated in the battle of Salamis, since the story of this battle in the Persians most likely belongs to an eyewitness. In Aeschylus's youth, Athens was an insignificant city, but he happened to witness the advancement of his hometown to a leading place in the Greek world, which happened after the Greco-Persian wars. Aeschylus performed for the first time in the competition of tragedians ca. 500 BC, but he managed to win the first prize only in 484. Later, Aeschylus took first place at least 13 times. The Athenians had a very high regard for his works. This can be judged by the fact that after his death in Athens, it was decided that anyone wishing to stage Aeschylus's play "will receive a chorus" from the authorities (that is, will receive permission to resume the production of the drama at the Dionysius festival). Aeschylus traveled to Sicily several times and staged his dramas there, and in 476 BC. composed the tragedy of the Etnyanka in honor of the founding of Etna by Hieron, the then ruler of Syracuse. Tradition that in 468 BC. Aeschylus left Athens because he was outraged by the success of Sophocles' younger rival, most likely unreliable. Be that as it may, in 467 BC. Aeschylus was already in Athens again to stage his tragedy Seven against Thebes, and in 458 BC. his masterpiece, Oresteia, the only surviving Greek trilogy, won the first prize. Aeschylus died at Gela in Sicily in 456 BC. Like all tragedians before Sophocles, he played roles in his own dramas, but also hired professional actors. It is believed that it was Aeschylus who made an extremely important step in the development of the drama with the introduction of a second actor.

Works. Aeschylus has combined his tragedies into trilogies with a common theme, such as the fate of the Laya family. It is not known whether he was the first who began to create such a single trilogy, but the use of just such a form opened up a wide scope for the poet's thought and became one of the factors that allowed him to achieve perfection. It is believed that Aeschylus was the author of ninety dramas, the names of 79 are known to us; of these, 13 are satire dramas, which were usually staged as an addition to a trilogy. Although only 7 tragedies have survived to us, their composition was determined as a result of careful selection made in the last centuries of antiquity, and therefore they can be considered the best or most typical fruits of Aeschylus's poetic gift. Each of these tragedies deserves special mention. The Persians, the only surviving historical drama in all of Greek literature, describes the defeat of the Persians at Salamis in 480 BC. The tragedy was written eight years after these events, i.e. in 472 BC There are no chained data regarding the time when the Prometheus tragedy was staged. Some scholars consider it to be related to the early period of creativity, others, on the contrary, to the later. It was probably part of a Prometheus trilogy. The myth on which this tragedy is based - the punishment of Prometheus for stealing fire and neglecting the will of Zeus - was developed in Shelley's famous poem Prometheus Freed and in many other works. The Tragedy of the Seven against Thebes, set in 467 BC, is the story of the sons of Oedipus, Eteocles and Polynices. This is the final part of the trilogy, the first two tragedies were dedicated to Laius and his son Oedipus. The Tragedy of the Supplicant tells the story of the fifty daughters of Danae, who chose to flee Egypt rather than marry their cousins, the sons of Egypt, and took refuge in Argos. Due to the abundance of archaisms, this tragedy has long been considered the earliest surviving work of Aeschylus, but a papyrus fragment published in 1952 allows it to be dated presumably to 463 BC. The Oresteia Trilogy was written in 458 BC. and consists of Agamemnon, Hoefor and Eumenides.

Technique of drama. When Aeschylus began to write, the tragedy was mainly a lyrical choral work and, in all likelihood, consisted of choral parts, occasionally interrupted by remarks, exchanged between the leader of the choir (luminary) and the only actor (however, during the course of the drama, he could play several roles). Aeschylus's introduction of a second actor had a tremendous impact on the essence of drama, for for the first time it made it possible to use dialogue and convey dramatic conflict without the participation of the chorus. In the Petitioners and in the Persians, the choir plays a major role. The petitioners contain only one short episode in which two characters are talking on the stage, in general, throughout the entire play, the actors communicate only with the choir (therefore, this play was considered to be the earliest tragedy of Aeschylus). However, by the end of his life, Aeschylus had learned to easily control two or even three characters at the same time, and although long parts of the chorus are still celebrated in Oresteia, the main action and development of the plot take place precisely through dialogues.

Aeschylus's plot structure remains relatively simple. The protagonist finds himself in a critical situation determined by the will of the deities, and this situation, as a rule, does not change until the denouement. Once stopping at a certain course of action, the hero continues to march along the chosen path, not knowing doubts. The internal conflict, to which Euripides assigns such an important place, is almost invisible in Aeschylus, so that even Orestes, about to kill his mother at the behest of Apollo, shows only a moment's hesitation. A few simple episodes create tension and bring into play the details that lead to the disaster itself. The songs of the chorus, intertwined with episodes, form a majestic background, they convey a direct feeling of a tragic situation, create a mood of anxiety and horror, and sometimes contain an indication of the moral law, which is the hidden spring of action. The fate of the choir is always involved in tragedy; the outcome of the drama affects its participants to a certain extent. Thus, Aeschylus uses the chorus as an additional actor, and not just as a commentator on events.

Aeschylus's characters are outlined with several powerful strokes. Here it is necessary to highlight Eteocles in the Seven against Thebes and Clytemnestra in Agamemnon. Eteocles, a noble and loyal tsar who brought death on himself and on his family partly because of his devotion to his fatherland, was called the first tragic hero of the European drama. Clytemnestra has often been compared to Lady Macbeth. This woman, possessing an iron will and unyielding determination, possessed by a blind rage that prompts her to kill her husband, reigns supreme in all the scenes of Agamemnon in which she takes part.

Worldview. Aeschylus's greatest achievement was the creation of a deeply thought-out theology. Starting from the Greek anthropomorphic polytheism, he came to the idea of a single supreme deity ("Zeus, whoever he is, if he is to be called that pleasingly"), almost completely devoid of anthropomorphic features. In The Supplicants, Aeschylus refers to Zeus as “the King of kings, the most good and perfect of the divine powers,” and in his last tragedy, the Eumenides, he portrays Zeus as an omniscient and omnipotent deity who combined justice and world balance, that is, the functions of a personal deity and the inevitable fulfillment of an impersonal destiny. It may seem that Prometheus chained contrasts sharply with this idea of Zeus, since here Zeus is perceived by Prometheus, Io and the chorus as an evil tyrant, powerful, but by no means omniscient, and, moreover, fettered by the iron laws of Necessity. However, it should be remembered that Prometheus is chained - only the first of three tragedies on this plot, undoubtedly, in the next two parts Aeschylus found some solution to the theological problem he touched upon.

In the theology of Aeschylus, the divine control of the universe also extends to the kingdom of human morality, i.e., to use the language of myth, Justice is the daughter of Zeus. Therefore, divine powers invariably punish the sins and crimes of people. The effect of this force is not limited to retribution for excessive well-being, as some of Aeschylus's contemporaries believed: wealth, properly used, does not lead to death. However, mortals who are too prosperous show a tendency to blind delusion, insanity, which, in turn, breeds sin or arrogance and ultimately leads to divine punishment and death. The consequences of such a sin are often perceived as hereditary, transmitted within the family in the form of a family curse, but Aeschylus makes it clear that each generation commits its own sin, thereby causing a family curse to come to life. At the same time, the punishment sent down by Zeus is by no means a blind and bloodthirsty retribution for a sin: a person learns through suffering, so that suffering serves a positive moral task.

Oresteia, a trilogy, staged in 458 BC, consists of three tragedies - Agamemnon, Choephora, Eumenides. This trilogy traces the action of the curse that befell the clan of Atreus, when the son of Pelope Atreus, having quarreled with his brother Fiestos, killed the children of Fiesta and treated their father to a terrible meal prepared from children. The curse sent by Fiestos to Atreus passed on to the son of Atreus - Agamemnon. Therefore, when Agamemnon, at the head of the Greek army, went to Troy, he decided to sacrifice his own daughter, Iphigenia, in order to appease Artemis. His wife Clytemnestra never forgave him for this atrocity. In his absence, she acquired a lover Aegisthus, the son of Fiesta, with whom she conceived a plan of revenge. Ten years later, Troy fell and the Greeks returned home.

In the tragedy of Agamemnon, the action begins just from this moment, and it unfolds around the killing of the leader of the Greek army by his own wife. When Agamemnon returns home, accompanied by the Trojan prophetess Cassandra, who became his captive and concubine, Clytemnestra invites him to enter the palace and kills him; the fate of Agamemenon is shared by Cassandra. After the murders, Aegisthus appears on the scene and declares that henceforth the royal power belongs to him and Clytemnestra. The choir of the Argos elders, who have remained faithful to Agamemnon, vainly protests and hints at the coming retribution when the son of Agamemnon, Orestes, grows up.

The tragedy of Choephora (or The Sacrifice at the Tomb) tells the story of the return of Orestes, who, after the murder of his father, was sent outside of Argos. Obeying the oracle of Apollo, Orestes secretly returns to avenge his father. With the help of his sister, Electra, he infiltrates the palace, kills Aegisthus and his own mother. After this act, Orestes becomes a victim of Erinius, formidable spirits who avenge the murder of a relative, and in madness leaves the stage to again seek protection from Apollo.

The tragedy of Eumenides is dedicated to the suffering of Orestes, which ended in the end with his justification. The young man pursued by Erinyes comes to Athens and appears here before a specially appointed court (Areopagus), headed by the goddess Athena. Apollo acts as a protector, and the vote cast by Athena decides the case in favor of Orestes, since people could not come to a final decision. This is how the ancestral curse of Atreus ends. Erinia is beside herself with anger in connection with such a decision of the Areopagus, but Athena manages to soften them, persuading them to transfer their functions of keepers of justice to Zeus, and to settle in Attica as beneficent spirits of the earth.

The materials of the encyclopedia "The World Around Us" were used.

Compositions:

Cit .: Aeschyli septem quae supersunt tragoediae, ed. D. Page, Oxf., 1972;

In Russian. per. - Tragedies, trans. S. Apta, M., 1971.

Aeschylus. Tragedies. M., 1978

Aeschylus. Tragedies. M., 1989

Literature:

Zelinsky F.F. Aeschylus. Feature article. Pg., 1918

Language and literature of the ancient world (to the 2500th anniversary of Aeschylus). L., 1977

I r x about V. N .. Eschil, M., 1958;

Yarkho V.N. The dramaturgy of Aeschylus and some problems of ancient Greek tragedy. M., 1978

Radzig S. S., History of Ancient Greek Literature, 4th ed., M., 1977;

Lesk, A., Die tragische Dichtung der Hellenen, 3 Aufl., Gott., 1972;

Wege zu Aischylos, hrsg. von H. Hommel, Bd 1 - 2, Darmstadt, 1974.

From the tragedy of the 5th century. preserved works of the three most significant representatives of the genre - Aeschylus, Sophocles and Euripides. Each of these names marks a historical stage in the development of the Attic tragedy, which consistently reflected three stages in the history of Athenian democracy.

Aeschylus, the poet of the era of the formation of the Athenian state and the Greco-Persian wars, is the founder of ancient tragedy in its established forms, the true “father of tragedy”. the emergence of a democratic state from a generic society.

Biographical information about Aeschylus, as well as about the vast majority of ancient writers in general, is very scarce. He was born in 525/4 in Eleusis and came from a noble landowning family. In his youth, he witnessed the overthrow of tyranny in Athens, the establishment of a democratic system and the successful struggle of the Athenian people against the intervention of aristocratic communities. was a supporter of a democratic state. This grouping played a significant role in Athens during the first decades of the 5th century. In the fight against the Persians, Aeschylus took personal part, the outcome of the war strengthened his conviction in the superiority of the democratic freedom of Athens over the monarchical principle underlying the Persian despotism (the tragedy of the “Persians”). was "a pronounced tendentious poet." Further democratization of the Athenian state system in the 60s. V century cause Aeschylus to worry about the fate of Athens (trilogy "Oresteia"). In the Sicilian city of Gele, Aeschylus died in 456/5.

even adheres to the old idea of hereditary family responsibility: the fault of the ancestor falls on the descendants, entangles them with its fatal consequences and leads to inevitable death. On the other hand, the gods of Aeschylus become the guardians of the legal foundations of the new state structure, Aeschylus draws how divine retribution is introduced into the natural course of things. The relationship between divine influence and the conscious behavior of people, the meaning of the ways and goals of this influence, the question of its justice and goodness constitute the main problematic of Aeschylus, which he depicts on the image of human destiny and human suffering.

Heroic legends serve as material for Aeschylus. He himself called his tragedies "crumbs from the great feasts of Homer," meaning, of course, not only the Iliad and the Odyssey, but the entire set of epic poems attributed to Homer. "Aeschylus was the first to increase the number of actors from one to two, reduce the parts of the choir and give primacy to dialogue." In other words, tragedy ceased to be a cantata, one of the branches of mimic choral lyrics, and began to turn into a drama. In the pre-Eschylian tragedy, the story of the only actor about what was happening behind the stage and his dialogue with the luminary served only as a pretext for the lyrical outpourings of the chorus. Thanks to the introduction of the second actor, it became possible to intensify the dramatic action, opposing the fighting forces to each other, and to characterize one character by his reaction to the messages or actions of another. Ancient scholars counted 90 dramatic works (tragedies and dramas of satyrs) in the literary heritage of Aeschylus; only seven tragedies have survived in full, including one complete trilogy. The earliest of the surviving plays is The Supplicants (The Begging). For the early type of tragedy, "The Persians", staged in 472, are very characteristic and were part of a trilogy that was not connected by thematic unity. This tragedy is indicative for two reasons: firstly, being an independent play, it contains its problematics in a finished form; secondly, the plot of "Persians", drawn not from mythology, but from recent history, makes it possible to judge how Aeschylus processed the material in order to make it a tragedy

"Seven Against Thebes" is the first Greek tragedy known to us in which the actor's parts decisively prevail over the choral part, and, at the same time, the first tragedy in which a vivid image of the hero is given. There are no other characters in the play; the second actor is used "for the role of the messenger. The beginning of the tragedy is no longer the chorus. " and the acting scene, prologue.

The latest work of Aeschylus, "Oresteia" (458), the only trilogy that has come down to us, is also devoted to the problem of the tragic fate of the family. Already in its dramatic structure, Oresteia is much more complex than the previous tragedies: it uses a third actor introduced by Aeschylus's young rival Sophocles, and a new stage arrangement - with a back set depicting a palace and with apology.

tragedy "Chained Prometheus" The old myths, already known to us from Hesiod, about the change of generations of gods and people, about Prometheus, who stole fire from heaven for people, receive a new development from Aeschylus. Prometheus, one of the titans, that is, representatives of the "older generation" of the gods, is a friend of humanity. In the struggle of Zeus with the titans, Prometheus took part on the side of Zeus; but when Zeus, after defeating the titans, set out to destroy the human race and replace it with a new generation, Prometheus opposed this. He brought heavenly fire to people and awakened them to conscious life.

Writing and reckoning, crafts and sciences - all these are the gifts of Prometheus to people. Aeschylus, thus, abandons the idea of the former "golden age" and the subsequent deterioration of the conditions of human life. For the services rendered to people, he is doomed to torment. The prologue of the tragedy depicts how the blacksmith god Hephaestus, by order of Zeus, chains Prometheus to a rock; Hephaestus is accompanied by two allegorical figures - Power and Violence. Zeus opposes only brute force to Prometheus. All nature sympathizes with the sufferings of Prometheus; when at the end of the tragedy Zeus, irritated by Prometheus's intransigence, sends a storm and Prometheus, along with the rock, falls into the underworld, the chorus of the Oceanid nymphs (daughters of the Ocean) is ready to share his fate with him. In the words of Marx, “the confession of Prometheus:

In truth, I hate all the gods

there is her [t. e. philosophy] its own recognition, its own dictum, directed against all heavenly and earthly gods. "

The surviving tragedies allow us to outline three stages in the work of Aeschylus, which, at the same time, are stages in the formation of tragedy as a dramatic genre. The early plays ("The Petitioners", "The Persians") are characterized by the predominance of choral parts, little use of the second actor and poor development of dialogue, abstraction of images. The Middle Period includes such works as "Seven Against Thebes" and "Chained Prometheus". Here the central image of the hero appears, characterized by several basic features; dialogue is more developed, prologues are created; the images of episodic figures ("Prometheus") also become clearer. The third stage is represented by Oresteia, with its more complex composition, increased drama, numerous secondary characters and the use of three actors.

Question number 12. Aeschylus. Ideological and artistic features of creativity. In Aeschylus, elements of the traditional worldview are closely intertwined with the attitudes generated by democratic statehood. He believes in the real existence of divine forces that act on a person and often cunningly lay networks for him. Aeschylus even adheres to the old idea of hereditary family responsibility: the fault of the ancestor falls on the descendants, entangles them with its fatal consequences and leads to inevitable death. Heroic legends serve as material for Aeschylus. He himself called his tragedies "crumbs from the great feasts of Homer," meaning, of course, not only the Iliad and the Odyssey, but the entire totality of epic poems attributed to Homer, that is, the "cycle" The fate of the hero or the heroic the Aeschylus clan most often depicts in three successive tragedies, constituting a plot and ideological integral trilogy; it is followed by a satyr drama based on a plot from the same mythological cycle to which the trilogy belonged. However, borrowing plots from the epic, Aeschylus not only dramatizes the legends, but also reinterprets them, permeates them with his problematics. It is clear from the tragedies of Aeschylus that the poet was a supporter of a democratic state, although he belonged to a conservative group within democracy. Ancient scholars counted 90 dramatic works (tragedies and dramas of satyrs) in the literary heritage of Aeschylus; only seven tragedies have survived in full, including one complete trilogy. In addition, 72 plays are known to us by their titles, which usually show what mythological material was developed in the play; their fragments, however, are few in number and small in size.

He was a legendary poet, a brave warrior, and possibly initiated into the famous Eleusinian mysteries. But we are all grateful to the Greek Aeschylus for the fact that he stood at the origins of the great, mysterious and sacred art, whose name is Theater.

There were three of them, the founders of the ancient theater, and they appeared almost simultaneously on the land of Hellas.

The ancient legend makes it possible to roughly establish the age ratio of the three great tragedians. When the 45-year-old Aeschylus participated in the battle of Salamis, Euripides was born on the very day of the battle, and Sophocles led the Ephebus chorus, glorifying this victory. And yet Aeschylus was the first.

He was born in Eleusis, a city in Attica near Athens. This place, from which today only ruins remain, has long been known thanks to the ancient center of the Mysteries located there. It was located around a crevice in the earth's surface, where, according to ancient Greek myth, Pluto dragged the daughter of Zeus and Demeter Persephone by force. In many works this place was later referred to as "the city of the Goddesses."

Few details from the life of the great tragedian have been preserved for us by history. We know that Aeschylus's two brothers distinguished themselves in battles with the Persians, and he himself fought bravely at Marathon and Salamis. In the first of these battles, he was wounded. And now it is quite surprising that the "father of tragedy" never forgot about his military past and was even more proud of it than of his peaceful occupation. This is evidenced by the lines of his own epitaph: “Under this monument is hidden Aeschylus, the son of Euphoriot. He was born an Athenian and died in the fertile plains of Gela. The glorious forest of Marathon and the quick-tongued Mede will tell if he was brave. They know it! " They say that centuries later, poets and artists of different eras made a pilgrimage to this slab to Sicily.

Aeschylus spent most of his life in Athens and for unknown reasons left them forever. According to one of the legends explaining such an escape, Aeschylus, initiated into the Eleusinian mysteries, broke his vow to keep a secret and in the tragedy "Prometheus chained", albeit allegorically, he made the secrets revealed to him public.

As to what secrets Aeschylus divulged, controversy continues to this day. It is very difficult to find and recognize them in his poems today. But maybe this legend is really not far from the truth. Let us recall at least how unusual, again according to legend, the life of the 70-year-old tragedian ended. Roman sources say that the eagle lifted a heavy turtle into the air and threw it on the bald head of Elder Aeschylus, mistaking it for a stone. Although eagles, indeed, this is how they sometimes kill their victims, this story is more like an allegory. After all, the eagle is a symbol of Zeus, and the tortoise is of Apollo: a hint at the retribution sent to Aeschylus for divulging sacred secrets.

"Supplicants", "Chained Prometheus", "Persians", "Seven Against Thebes", "Agamemnon", "Hoephora" and "Eumenides" - these are the names of seven of his tragedies that have survived to this day. We do not know exactly how many of them were written by Aeschylus. In separate parts from the Greek catalogs that were in all ancient libraries, it was possible to restore the title of 79 of his tragedies. It is believed that there were at least 90 of them.

Seven have reached us. Like almost all classical works of Ancient Greece, they are preserved in the archives of Alexandria. These were copies taken from official texts, the originals of which were in Athens. They came to Europe from Constantinople, already in the Renaissance.

According to Aristotle, Aeschylus creates a new form of tragedy. He "is the first to increase the number of actors from one to two, and gives importance to dialogue on stage." Aeschylus' actors, chorus and audience are connected by a single thread of what is happening. The audience participates in the performance, expressing approval of the heroes or indignation at their actions. The dialogue between the two actors is often accompanied by murmurs, screams of horror, or crying from the audience. The chorus in the tragedy of Aeschylus becomes the spokesman for the thoughts and feelings of the characters and even the audience themselves. What is only vaguely born in their souls under the influence of what is happening on the stage, suddenly takes on clear outlines and harmony in the wise remarks of the chorus.

There is very little information about what kind of mechanics Aeschylus used during his performances, but it seems that the system of special effects of the ancient theater allowed miracles to work. In one of the now lost works - it was called "Psychostasis" or "Weighing of Souls" - Aeschylus presented Zeus in the sky, who weighed the fate of Memnon and Achilles on huge scales, while the mothers of both, Eos and Thetis, "floated" in the air next to the scales. How did you manage to lift large weights into the sky and throw them down from a height, to cause lightning, a downpour, and mountain landslides that thrilled the audience during the action, as in Chained Prometheus?

It is logical to assume that the Greeks used large cranes, lifting devices, hatches, water and steam removal systems, as well as all kinds of chemical mixtures, so that fire or clouds appeared at the right time. Nothing has survived to support this hypothesis. And yet, if the ancients achieved such effects, it means that they had to have special means and adaptations for this.

Aeschylus is credited with many other, simpler theatrical innovations. For example, koturny - shoes with high wooden soles, luxurious clothes, as well as the improvement of the tragic mask with the help of a special horn to amplify the sound. Psychologically, all these tricks - increasing the height and increasing the sound of the voice - were designed to create an environment befitting the appearance of gods and heroes.

The theater of Ancient Greece was very different from the theater we are used to at the beginning of the 21st century. Classical theater is mystical and religious. The performance does not please the audience, but gives a lesson in life, through empathy and compassion, which the viewer is imbued with, cleans his soul from certain passions.

With the exception of the "Persians", which were based on real historical events, the tragedies of Aeschylus have always relied on the epic, myths, and folk legends. These were the Trojan and Theban wars. Aeschylus knew how to return them to their former brilliance, to give grandeur and actual meaning. King Pelasgus in The Petitioners discusses the affairs of the state as if he were a Greek of the 5th century BC. The controversial Zeus from "Prometheus the Chained" sometimes uses expressions worthy of the Athenian ruler Peisistratus. Eteocles in the tragedy "Seven Against Thebes" gives orders to his army as a strategist - contemporary of Aeschylus would do.

He possessed an amazing ability in a separate, particular case to see not just an episode in the chain of events, but his connection with the spiritual world and with the very destiny that governs people and the Universe. His tragedies have a rare property - always remain above the triviality of everyday life and even bring something from the Higher reality into it. In this art, the followers will not be able to compare with Aeschylus. They will invariably descend to earth, to the human world. And their gods and heroes will be so similar to ordinary people with their passions and desires that we can hardly recognize in them the mysterious inhabitants of the Other Reality. In Aeschylus, everything, absolutely everything, is shrouded in mystery, fanned by the Breath of what stands above people.

For a person at the beginning of the 21st century with his mentality, this may seem boring and tedious, but we cannot measure by our standards what existed and was valued 2500 years ago. In addition, Aeschylus sought to teach a lesson, not to entertain, for this was not at all the tragedy served. There were other places and circumstances for entertainment, and therefore no one was surprised by their absence in the theater, just as today it does not seem strange to us that no one laughs at a concert of Beethoven's music - we go to the circus to laugh.

Upon learning of the death of Aeschylus, the Athenians honored him with the highest honors, and the tragedies that had won so many competitions were staged again. Aeschylus, who became the character in "Frogs" by Aristophanes, says about himself: "My poetry did not die with me."

Many centuries later, Victor Hugo wrote about Aeschylus: "... it is impossible to approach him without the trepidation that one experiences in the face of something huge and mysterious." full of special charm, like the flowers of distant, inaccessible lands. Aeschylus is an ancient mystery in human form, a pagan prophet. His writings, had they all come down to us, would have been the Greek Bible. "

This often happens: when we approach our own past, we find that we know very little about it, partly because the sources are scarce, and partly because we are not inclined to either cherish or try to explain it. Perhaps, to someone, such attempts will seem only a memory of the ashes of forgotten times. But for some, they can become the smallest particles of a better, new world. A world that is more humane and more directed to God.

for the magazine "Man Without Borders"

Aeschylus brought into action the tragedy of yet another independent actor (deteragonist). This innovation reduced the parts of the choir, expanded the dialogues, thanks to which the development of the action was revived. It is believed that it was Aeschylus who came up with the idea of using rich costumes, masks, stage effects with the help of technical devices. He introduced a large number of dances into his works, for which he himself created music and came up with movements.

"Chained Prometheus" The old myths, already known to us from Hesiod, about the change of generations of gods and people, about Prometheus, who stole fire from heaven for people, receive a new development from Aeschylus. Prometheus, one of the titans, that is, representatives of the "older generation" of the gods, is a friend of humanity. In the struggle of Zeus with the titans, Prometheus took part on the side of Zeus; but when Zeus, after defeating the titans, set out to destroy the human race and replace it with a new generation, Prometheus opposed this. He brought heavenly fire to people and awakened them to conscious life.

Aeschylus as “the father of tragedy. WITH

Read also

"Father of Tragedy"

The first tragedian

Compositions:

Literature: