Beyond Death in the Oresteia

The Oresteia is permeated with depictions of the afterlife, which have never been examined together. In this book, Amit Shilo analyzes their intertwined and conflicting implications. He argues for a “poetics of multiplicity” and a “poetics of the beyond” that inform the ongoing debates over justice, fate, ethics, and politics in the trilogy. The book presents novel, textually grounded readings of Cassandra’s fate, Clytemnestra’s ghost scene, mourning ritual, hero cult, and punishment by Hades. It offers a fresh perspective on the political thought of the trilogy by contrasting the ethical focus of the Erinyes and Hades with Athena’s insistence on divine unity and warfare. Shedding new light on the trilogy as a whole, this book is crucial reading for students and scholars of classical literature and religion. This title is also available as Open Access on Cambridge Core.

Amit Shilo is Assistant Professor in the Department of Classics at the University of California, Santa Barbara. He is a cofounder of Classics and Social Justice, a group for those using Classics to address inequalities in the world. He has published on Greek tragedy and Plato.