No CrossRef data available.
Article contents
Time and Memory in Euripides' Iphigenia at Aulis1
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 04 July 2014
Extract
Three extended dialogue or monologue passages, along with numerous brief references and two choral odes in Euripides' Iphigenia at Aulis talk about the past. As in many tragedies, the past is not altogether past because it is forced upon characters and audience alike by the pressure of tradition and by its likeness to the present situation.
Agamemnon begins the play by harking back to a previous time. Nor is his monologue a simple, ingenuous statement of historical facts. It is full of subtleties which clarify much of what subsequently occurs in the drama. Timing is important from his first utterance:
Leda, the daughter of Thestius had three parthenoi,
Phoebe, Clytemnestra my wife,
and Helen … (49-51)
- Type
- Research Article
- Information
- Copyright
- Copyright © Aureal Publications 1982
Footnotes
1.
This paper, in a slightly different form, was read to CAPN 17 March 1979.
References
2. Cf. de Romilly, Jacqueline, Time in Greek Tragedy, (Ithaca, N.Y. 1968Google Scholar), especially 10–11.
3. For the order of the prologue, I have used Murray’s text with the suggestions of Willink, C. W., ‘The Prologue of the Iphigenia at Aulis,’ CQ 21 (1971CrossRefGoogle Scholar).
4. To such an extent I can agree with Ferguson, J. (‘Iphigenia at Aulis,’ TAPA 99, 1968, 157–163Google Scholar) when he says that the play ‘shows us characters in the grip of tychē’ (p. 159; cf. 162–3); but once we have learned more about Agamemnon’s past, it becomes clear that human choices, including Agamemnon’s own choices, are responsible. It is true, on the other hand, that Agamemnon presents himself as a man in the grip of tychē in the monologue and throughout. But we learn that he has been, if not lying, at least avoiding his share of the responsibility. What he leaves out of his opening statement is as important as what he puts in. Wassermann, F., ‘Agamemnon in the Iphigenia at Aulis: A Man in an Age of Crisis,’ TAPA 80(1949), 177–186Google Scholar, seems to come closer to the mark when he says that in the play man is shown as both ‘agent and victim of tychē, anagkē, and atē’ (p. 174).