Christopher S. Morrissey

Passions in Economy, Politics, and the Media

http://theol.uibk.ac.at/cover/events/innsbruck2003_program.html

http://www.moreC.com

The Best Tragedies

The change of fortune should be not from bad to good, but, reversely, from good to bad. It should come about as the result not of vice, but of some great error or frailty, in a character either such as we have described, or better rather than worse. The practice of the stage bears out our view. At first the poets recounted any legend that came in their way. Now, the best tragedies are founded on the story of a few houses- on the fortunes of Alcmaeon, Oedipus, Orestes, Meleager, Thyestes, Telephus, and those others who have done or suffered something terrible.

-- Aristotle, Poetics 13

The House of Atreus:cannibalism, incest, treachery,

adultery, rape, & murder

• Tantalus - dined with gods (theft & test)• Pelops (ivory shoulder):

Oenomaus & daughter Hippodamia & curse from bribed Myrtilus (chariot race)

• Atreus + Aerope: fleece, sun, &banquet of Thyestes’ 3 sons (raped daughter Pelopia)

• Agamemnon & Meneleus (The Atreidae)• Orestes, Iphigenia, Elektra, Chrysothemis

Aristotle in Hollywood

The reasons why people watch movies, television drama and the theatre, and why they read, are not a mystery.

We are seeking more from life, we want to understand life’s meaning - and that of death.

-- Julian Friedmann

Oresteia

• Agamemnon

• The Libation Bearers(Choephoroi)

• The Eumenides

Agamemnon & Iphigenia

Orestes & Aegisthus

Furies & Apollo & Orestes

Agamemnon: the Set-Up

• Premise: end of Trojan war

• Situation: anger of Clytaemestra & Argos

• Character: dutiful warrior-hero (the king)

• Problem: politics over family (kingship)

Agamemnon: the Action

• Watchman

• Clytaemestra

• Herald

• Agamemnon

• Cassandra

• Aegisthus

The Libation Bearers: the Action

• The Libation Bearers

• Elektra• Orestes• Clytemestra• Nurse (Cilissa)• Aegisthus

• Clytemestra & Orestes

The Eumenides: the Action

• Clytemestra 94

• Orestes 235• Athena 434• Furies (Erinyes) 490• Apollo 576• Judges (483) 753

• Eumenides 885

Structure & Outline: Oresteia

AgamemnonThe Libation Bearers

The Eumenides

Dr. Robin Mitchell-Boyask, Associate Professor of ClassicsTemple University

Politics & Religion

The contest between religion and politics is not in itself a modern one. This we know not only from the Bible, but also from Greek tragedy. The action of Sophocles' Antigone hinges on the conflict between political order, represented and upheld by Creon, and religious duty, represented in the person of Antigone. The first is public, involving the whole community; the second is private, involving Antigone alone. Hence the conflict cannot be resolved. Public interest has no bearing on Antigone's decision to bury her dead brother, while the duty laid by divine command on Antigone cannot possibly be a reason for Creon to jeopardize the state.

Justice & Vengeance

A similar conflict informs the Oresteia of Aeschylus, in which a succession of religious murders, beginning with Agamemnon's ritual sacrifice of his daughter, lead at last to the terrifying persecution of Orestes by the furies. The gods demand the murders; the gods also punish them. Religion binds the house of Atreus, but in dilemmas that it does not resolve. Resolution comes at last only when judgment is handed over to the city, personified in Athena. In the political order, we are led to understand, justice replaces vengeance, and negotiated solutions abolish absolute commands. The message of the Oresteia resounds down the centuries of Western civilization: it is through politics, not religion, that peace is secured. Vengeance is mine, saith the Lord; but justice, says the city, is mine.

The Greek World

The Greek tragedians wrote at the beginning of Western civilization. But their world is continuous with our world. Their law is the law of the city, in which political decisions are arrived at by discussion, participation, and dissent. It was in the context of the Greek city-state that political philosophy began, and the great questions of justice, authority, and the constitution are discussed by Plato and Aristotle in terms that are current today.

-- Roger Scruton

Justice: Aegisthus vs. Odysseus

Odyssey I. 31-60

Drop, drop – in our sleep, upon the heartsorrow falls, memory’s pain,                  and to us, though against our very will,even in our own despite,                       comes wisdom,                                     by the awful grace of God.

-- Edith Hamilton(1937 translation of Agamemnon 179-183)

The Justice of Zeus