Aeschylus: Oresteia - Agamemnon

Beginning and ending with the kindling of fires, Aeschylus’ trilogy, the Oresteia, reflects on the cyclicality of violence and the inescapable claims of blood kinship—claims binding parents and children, the living to the crimes of the dead.

We begin with Aeschylus’ Agamemnon, another homecoming after the Trojan War. Wide-ruling son of Atreus, Agamemnon returns at last to Argos. His wife, Clytemnestra, waits: eloquent and calculating, hardened by memory of the daughter he sacrificed in the name of victory.

Through grave choral meditations, the play interrogates the price of victory, the inextricability of justice with vengeance, and the collision of pride with the slow, inexorable truths of fate.

Please read ahead and be prepared to discuss Aeschylus’ Agamemnon in detail.