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One of the most distinctive features of Aeschylus' poetic style is the choral odes. The odes can generally be divided into two parts: lyrical narrative and lyrical reflection. The narrative sections motivate the main action of the drama, often relating past events and causes. The lyrical reflection is distinguished from the narrative parts by its overt moralizing that lift the dramatic action from the particular to the universal. Within these sections of the ode, are clusters of moral generalizations or gnomes, dealing with a variety of topics but always of a distinctively moral nature. These gnomes far from being unrelated, in fact, give logic to the dramatic events, explaining the reason for a particular event and presenting that event in universal terms, in terms, let us say, of the justice of Zeus or the working of Fate. In fact, the gnomes move along two directions of the drama. They reflect upon and anticipate its events. The conflicts in, and resolutions to the drama are often worked out at the lyrical level. It is the purpose of this thesis, then, to study the gnomes of the Oresteia and their surrounding gnomic passages, to examine their meaning within their immediate context, and to see how and to what extent the gnomes relate to the dramatic actions. / Arts, Faculty of / Classical, Near Eastern and Religious Studies, Department of / Graduate

D.Litt. et Phil. / In the Oresteia of Aeschylus, the female characters meet with one of five different fates: vilification, silencing or erasure from the text, metamorphosis, sacrifice or murder. In Ancient Greek culture, ideas of the female corresponded to the following archetypes: Virgin and Wife/Mother. There exists, in mythology, another repository of archetypes which we may categorise as a group of women not connected to the household, functioning on the level of legend or the supernatural, who represent negative degrees of aberration of the feminine. The first two categories, Virgin and Wife/Mother, therefore, are integral to the Greek concept of the oikos (household) whilst the third category, Female Aberrations or Monsters, are seen as a direct threat to the oikos. I postulate a connection between the female characters of Aeschylus’ drama, the mythical archetypes of women found in myth and the fates suffered by each character. My focus in this dissertation, Archetypal Simulacra—Women in Aeschylus’ Oresteia is the depiction of female characters in the Oresteia and how the mythological archetypes of women as described above have influenced this depiction. I aim to determine how Aeschylus used traditional myths and depictions and what the extent and purpose was of his mythopoesis. I first offer a preliminary exploration of women as defined by social practice and various canonical literary works which served to define many mythological precedents for how women were conceived in later literature. This task I divide into two aspects: firstly in an assessment of the archetypes appearing in Greek mythology to which the female characters in the Oresteia correspond; and secondly in an exploration of how these characters were ‘scripted’ into the trilogy and to what extent they supported or undermined their societal ‘script’. In my aim to discover the connection between the portrayal of the female characters, their mythical determinants and the fates they suffer in the course of the drama I conclude that Aeschylus adapts myth in such a way that it underpins and justifies the patriarchal structures. He changes or eradicates his female characters who threaten to reject these strictures. He supplies us with female figures who support the male cause while he violently negates those women who threaten to damage male authority. The playwright has used the plasticity of traditional myth to support the society of Athens with its attitudes and fears regarding the feminine Other who exists in its shadows.

My PhD thesis, The Flower of Suffering, offers a philosophical evaluation of Aeschylus' Oresteia in light of Presocratic ideas. By examining several aspects of the tragic trilogy in relation to some of Aeschylus' near-contemporary thinkers, it aims to unravel the overarching theological ideas and the metaphysical and epistemological assumptions underpinning the Oresteia's dramatic narrative. My aim is to bring to relief those aspects of the Oresteia which I believe will benefit from a comparison with some ideas, or modes of thought, which circulated among the Presocratic philosophers. I will explore how reading some of this tragedy's themes in relation to Presocratic debates about theology and cosmic justice may affect and enhance our understanding of the theological ‘tension' and metaphysical assumptions in Aeschylus' work. In particular, it is my contention that Aeschylus' explicit theology, which has been often misinterpreted as a form of theodicy where the justice of heaven is praised and a faith in the rule of the gods is encouraged, is presented in these terms only to create a stronger collision with the painful reality dramatized from a human perspective. By setting these premises, it is my intention to confer on Greek tragedy a prominent position in the history of early Greek philosophical thought. If the exclusion of Presocratic material from debates about tragedy runs the risk of obscuring a thorough understanding of the broader cultural backdrop against which tragedy was born, the opposite is also true. Greek tragedy represents, in its own dramatic language, a fundamental contribution to early philosophical speculation about the divine, human attitudes towards it, indeed, the human place in relation to the cosmic forces which govern the universe.

The Greek tragedies of Classical Athens frequently portray mothers in central roles, but despite this significance, the relationship between mother and child has long been overshadowed in secondary scholarship by the relationship between husband and wife. This study demonstrates the direct relationship between a female character's active possession of her children and her autonomy, or her ability to act in her own interests, in three plays of Euripides: Electra, Medea, and Ion. In general, women who internalize their ownership of their children, expressed on stage both in word and action, have greater influence over the men around them and the power to enact the revenge they desire. Once their ends have been achieved, however, these tragic mothers often devalue their relationship with their children, leading to a decrease in power that restores the supremacy of the patriarchal order. Within this broad framework, Euripides achieves different results by adjusting aspects of this cycle of maternal empowerment. The Electra follows this outline just as its predecessor the Oresteia does; however, Euripides invents a fictional child for Electra, extending the concept of maternal empowerment to Electra and defining Clytemnestra as both mother and grandmother. In Medea, Euripides demonstrates the significance of Medea's children to her power, and Medea does devalue her children enough to destroy them, the source of her influence, but she is not punished and cannot be reabsorbed into the patriarchal structure, which leaves an audience with a heightened sense of anxiety at the threat of maternal empowerment. Finally, the Ion initially demonstrates a cycle similar to Medea: empowered by her ownership of the child she believes she has lost, Creusa attempts revenge against the young man who threatens her but is in fact her lost son. In the end, however, Creusa uses her empowerment to achieve recognition between mother and son and voluntarily relinquishes her ownership, resulting in a peaceful reabsorption into patriarchal society and a happy ending. Despite the variations on this cycle presented by Euripides, one theme persists: motherhood was both empowering and threatening, and it required strict male control to avoid tragic results. Thus as scholars of tragedy, we cannot ignore the mother-child relationship, not only for its power to illuminate the feminine, but also for its capacity to reveal the vulnerabilities of the masculine.

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The musical analysis of Greek tragedy has traditionally been limited to studies of meter and metatheatrical language. This dissertation seeks to establish a new approach to ancient dramatic song by demonstrating that the linguistic pitch accents of tragic lyrics often trace the melodic contours of their lost musical settings. In the papyri and inscriptions that preserve music notation alongside Greek lyrics, intonation and melody are often coordinated according to set principles, which are well established by previous scholarship. Through the creation of software that applies these historical principles to tragic texts, I demonstrate that stanzas sung to the same melody are significantly more similar in their accentual contours than control groups that do not share a melody. In many instances, the accents of these paired texts consistently trace the same pitch contours, allowing us to reconstruct the shape of the original melody with a high degree of confidence.After a general introduction, the dissertation’s first two chapters address the historical basis for this approach. Chapter 1 reviews the evidence for the musical structure of tragic song, confirming the widely held view that paired stanzas were generally set to the same melody. Chapter 2 turns to the evidence for the role of pitch accents in ancient Greek song, including the ancient testimony and musical documents, and a computational study of accent patterns across all the lyrics of Aeschylus’ surviving tragedies. The methodology developed in these first two chapters is applied in two case studies, in which I reconstruct and interpret the accentual melodies of select tragic lyrics. Chapter 3 analyzes the musical design of the chorus’ entrance song in Aeschylus’ Agamemnon, along with sections of the Kommos from Choephori. In both cases, I argue, melody would play an integral role in highlighting the themes of repetition and reversal within the Oresteia. Chapter 4 turns to the music of Euripides’ Medea, a play that has been central to previous discussions of accent in tragic music. Reading the lyrics and accentual melodies within the framework of musical history as understood in the fifth century bce, I argue that Euripides uses a contrast between ‘old’ and ‘new’ melodic styles to position his chorus at a turning point within literary history. In the dissertation’s final chapter, I address the reception of Medea’s music in a fragmentary comedy, the so-called Alphabet Tragedy of Callias. Together, these interpretive chapters provide a template for future work applying methods of musical analysis to the accentual melodies of ancient Greek song.

Στόχος αυτής της διπλωματικής εργασίας είναι η διερεύνηση του τρόπου με τον οποίον ο Βορειοϊρλανδός ποιητής Seamus Heaney, έχοντας επηρεαστεί από τις Ταραχές και την αγριότητα του Ιρλανδικού εμφυλίου πολέμου, αντιλαμβάνεται το σύγχρονο πόλεμο στην Βόρειο Ιρλανδία μέσα από την ποιητική σύνδεσή του με τον αρχαίο μύθο και την αρχαία Ελληνική τραγωδία. Αντικείμενα μελέτης αυτής της εργασίας αποτελούν το θεατρικό έργο The Cure at Troy (1990), που είναι διασκευή του Φιλοκτήτη του Σοφοκλή, και μια σειρά πέντε ποιημάτων, βασισμένων στην Ορέστεια του Αισχύλου, με τίτλο Η Βίγλα των Μυκηνών (Mycenae Lookout) από τη συλλογή Το Αλφάδι (The Spirit Level 1996). Στο πρώτο κεφάλαιο θα γίνει μία σύντομη ιστορική αναδρομή αναφορικά με τις πολιτικές και κοινωνικές συνθήκες που επικράτησαν για αιώνες και εξέθρεψαν το Ιρλανδικό πρόβλημα. Θα απαντηθεί γιατί στην Ιρλανδία καλλιεργήθηκε η μετάφραση και η διασκευή κλασικών έργων σε τέτοια έκταση, και θα καταδειχθεί ότι μέσα σε αυτό το περιβάλλον καταπίεσης και κοινωνικών διακρίσεων η κλασική παιδεία, με μακραίωνη παράδοση στην Ιρλανδία, συνδυάστηκε με την αμφισβήτηση της Βρετανικής κυριαρχίας επί της νήσου. Ακολούθως θα συζητηθεί για ποιο λόγο, κατά την τελευταία τριακονταετία ειδικότερα, αρκετοί σύγχρονοι Ιρλανδοί ποιητές και θεατρικοί συγγραφείς, σε μία προσπάθεια να ερμηνεύσουν τα διάφορα κοινωνικά, πολιτικά και θρησκευτικά προβλήματα που απασχολούν τόσο την κοινωνία της Δημοκρατίας της Ιρλανδίας όσο και αυτήν της Βόρειας Ιρλανδίας (Ulster), στράφηκαν προς την αρχαία Ελληνική τραγωδία, κάνοντας διασκευές και προσαρμόζοντας τα αρχαία κείμενα στις σύγχρονες συνθήκες. Σε αυτή την κατεύθυνση σημαντικό ρόλο έπαιξε ο θεατρικός οργανισμός Field Day, του οποίου η θεματολογία προσανατολίστηκε σε μεταφράσεις και διασκευές αρχαίων ελληνικών τραγωδιών. Στο δεύτερο και το τρίτο κεφάλαιο θα αναλυθούν το θεατρικό έργο The Cure at Troy και τα πέντε ποιήματα της σειράς Η Βίγλα των Μυκηνών, αντίστοιχα, και θα διερευνηθούν οι τρόποι με τους οποίους ο ποιητής διαφοροποιείται από τα αρχαία πρωτότυπα έργα. Στη συνέχεια θα εξεταστεί ο τρόπος με τον οποίον ο Heaney χρησιμοποιεί τα αρχαία έργα για να πραγματευτεί θέματα όπως η σημασία της ‘πληγής’ της Ιρλανδίας και της ‘θεραπείας’, η σύγκρουση μεταξύ προσωπικής ακεραιότητας και πολιτικής σκοπιμότητας, η κοινωνική ευθύνη του ατόμου, η απώλεια της λογικής και της ανθρωπιάς μπροστά στη βιαιότητα του πολέμου. Μέσω του μύθου, ο ποιητής καταγγέλλει την αποικιοκρατία, την εκδικητικότητα, το μίσος, την πολιτική βία, τον πόλεμο και τις συνέπειές τους στη ζωή των συμπατριωτών του. Επίσης θα γίνει εκτενής αναφορά στην έντονη συζήτηση που προκάλεσε το θεατρικό έργο The Cure at Troy σχετικά με το κατά πόσο υπάρχει αντιστοιχία μεταξύ των αρχαίων και των σύγχρονων πολιτικών καταστάσεων και με το αν οι χαρακτήρες στο έργο του Heaney αντιπροσωπεύουν σύγχρονα ιστορικά πρόσωπα που έλαβαν μέρος στον Ιρλανδικό εμφύλιο πόλεμο. Μέσα από την εις βάθος ανάλυση του θεατρικού έργου και των πέντε ποιημάτων η εργασία θα καταλήξει στο συμπέρασμα ότι ο Heaney χρησιμοποιεί τους τραγικούς χαρακτήρες για να προβάλλει ένα όραμα για το μέλλον και για να εκφράσει την ελπίδα του για εθνική συμφιλίωση και τον πόθο για ειρήνευση και επιστροφή σε μία φυσιολογική ζωή. Τέλος, θα αναδυθεί ο βασανιστικός προβληματισμός που απασχολεί τον Heaney διαχρονικά, αναφορικά με τον ρόλο του ποιητή μέσα σε μια κοινωνία που ταλανίζεται από την κρίση και με το κατά πόσο η ποίηση έχει τη δύναμη να επηρεάζει την κοινωνία χωρίς να παράγει πολιτική προπαγάνδα. / The present thesis studies how Seamus Heaney, having been highly influenced by the ferocity of the ‘Troubles’, perceives the civil war in Northern Ireland through its poetic connection with ancient Greek myth and drama. Study subjects of this thesis are Heaney’s play The Cure at Troy (1990), which is an adaptation of Sophocles’ Philoctetes, and a sequence of five poems by Heaney titled ‘Mycenae Lookout’ (The Spirit Level 1996) which is based on Aeschylus’ trilogy the Oresteia. The first chapter comprises of a short historic retrospection on the political and social conditions that prevailed for centuries and generated the Irish problem. It attempts to answer why the translation and adaptation of classic plays was used so extensively, and it suggests that in an oppressive environment of social and religious discrimination, classical education, of a long tradition in the island, was associated with the questioning of the British rule over Ireland. It will be shown that over the last thirty years in particular, many contemporary Irish poets and playwrights, in an effort to interpret various socio-political problems that concern the Republic of Ireland as well as Northern Ireland (Ulster), have been inspired by ancient Greek drama. Towards this direction, the Field Day Theatre Company has played a crucial role on the reworking of ancient Greek tragedies. An analysis of Heaney’s play The Cure at Troy and of the five poems of Mycenae Lookout will be presented in the second and third chapter, respectively. In both chapters, there will be a discussion on the ways his work is differentiated from the ancient original plays, and on how he treats subjects such as the significance of the ‘wound’ of Ireland and of the ‘cure’, the conflict between personal integrity and political expediency, the responsibility of the individual towards the community, the loss of reason and humanity in times of war. Through the ancient myths the poet denounces colonialism, vindictiveness, bigotry, faction, political violence and their consequences in the life of Irishmen. There will also be an extensive account on the issue of political allegory raised in the play The Cure at Troy, and on whether there is an equivalence between the ancient and the contemporary political situation. The thesis epilogue will come to the conclusion that Heaney uses the tragic characters to project a vision for the future of Northern Ireland, and to express his hope and desire for national reconciliation and peace. Finally, there will emerge the tantalizing problem that has been occupying Heaney’s mind over the years regarding the role of the poet in a community that has been harassed by the war crisis and whether poetry has the power to influence the society without producing political propaganda.