Aeschylus and the origins of drama

Abstract

How far is Aeschylus an archaic poet and to what extent is he an innovator? This is the subject I should like to discuss. To sum up, and in relation to former studies of mine, I would stress the fact that there are a series of archaisms in Aeschylus, either in content or form: a) Content: A recurrence of «divine» myths dealing with the gods. A recurrence of the theme of the death of the hero. The theme of punishment for the proud who violate religious taboos. Recurrence of the conflicts which affect the collectivity represented by the chorus, and that of solutions of transaction or equilibrium with a «happy ending». b) Form: The following are all indisputable archaisms: the absence, at times, of a prologue, and the presence of epirhematic agones with intervention of the chorus, as likewise of lyrical dialogues between the chorus and one or two actors. Then there is an element which, to my mind, is archaic with respect to subsequent tragic dramatists, but which is at heart the result of an innovation: the trilogy which enables the dramatist to develop conflicts which would otherwise be unrepresentable on account of the limited elements at the poet's disposal. I believe that the following may also be considered as innovations: the acceptance of the influence of the themes and philosophy of epic and lyric, the depth treatment of the theme of the hero and the development of the great political themes, all with epic undertones. Likewise, the complex, varied use of inherited structural units, at the service of the development of tragic themes, as I have attempted to explain elsewhere.