AESCHYLUS 1. His epitaph reads "Here lies the Athenian Aeschylus, son of Euphorion, who died in grain-bearing Geta.

The plain of Marathon can tell his proven might and the long-haired Mede who learned of it there". 2. He is often regarded as a great poet rather than dramatist. 3. "In all probabiity he is chiefly responsible for the essentially realistic nature of European drama" P. Whalley Hars. 4. One of his most important features is the essential dignity which he gave tragedy. Life was not to be viewed as a trivial or superficial thing, he had great breadth of outlook and high ideals. He writes in a very grand style (influenced by Homer). 5. Prometheus Bound dates from sometime after 479-8 BC (it foretells an eruption of Mount Etna which happened then). 6. Its basic theme is the conflict between brute force or violence and intelligence. 7. Is Oliver on the to the it an attack on popular religion? Probably not, but Taplin among others disputes the authorship of the play grounds that Aeschylus was well known for his devotion gods. the start of the

8. Perhaps this is Aeschylus's view of creation of a just god (a long process).

9. Is it political allegory? Maybe it is about the nature of tyranny. The Athenians, having introduced democracy quite recently were very opposed to tyranny. 10. The choral odes take up about one seventh of the play. 11. The drama is static but filled with conflict. 12. It falls into episodes according to the secondary character present. 13. One very clever innovation is the gradual revelation of a character by the reactions of those speaking to him. 14. Note the contrast between the lofty idealism of Prometheus and the homely wisdom of Oceanus. The advice at the Oracle of Delphi was "Know Thyself". 15. The central question is do we admire Prometheus or not?

16. One thing we do know from fragments of the other plays is that both Zeus and Prometheus change later on. 17. Lots of long speeches, the Athenians loved eloquence and oratory. 18. All words used for Zeus are ruler, dictator, tyrant...etc, not king. AESCHYLUS 1. He was born at Eleusis, 14 miles from Athens, the centre of a mystery cult around 525 BC. 2. In 484 BC he had his first victory in a dramatic contest. 3. He had 13-28 victories altogether. 4. His other plays are The Persians, Seven against Thebes, The Suppliants, The Oresteia. 5. He is indebted to Homer and makes much use of choral odes (half the lines in the Suppliants). 6. The characters in his plays are often types rather than individuals. 7. His style is very rich and ornate. 8. He was extremely officially preserved. popular in Athens and his plays were

9. "He would utter a dozen great ox-like words with eyebrows and crests, terrible things with monstrous faces, unintelligible to the spectators" (Euripides in the Frogs by Aristophanes). 10.He had a major influence on the shape of drama through the introduction of a second actor.