Citation: Helder, Arthur Hurschel. Aeschylus and his relation to the Greek drama. Senior thesis, Kansas State Agricultural College, 1904.Morse Department of Special CollectionsIntroduction: Aeschylus came to suffer much from envy and ill-will. Under his burden he left Athens never to return, and settling at Gela under the Patronage of Huron, he spent the last three years of his life engaged in writing. His name will were stand among the first of those who have enriched the world by their literary art

Helder, Arthur Hurschel

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"AEscH Y Lus AND HIS RELATION TO THE GREEK DRAMA" by ARTHUR HELDER. OUTLINE-- 1 The Drama up to the time of Aeschylus and its influence over him. 2. His Birth and life up to the writing of his dramas. 3. His dramas. 4. His later life and death. 5. His influence upon the dramatic world in general. Aeschylus and his relation to the Greek Drama. The correct understanding of the Greek drama depends largely upon the ability to eliminate most of our conceptions of the present day drama. If we can imagine ourselves among the Greek, people as they assembled two thousand years ago to pay homage to Bacchus or Dionysus, as he was more familiarly known, if we can watch the throngs of pilgrims on their way toward the place where the solemn rites were to be witnessed in ancient Athens, we may gain some notion of the drama as it was presented. Thousands of spectators assembled at the theatre of Dionysus, the place of homage paying. This was a large roofless structure having, at one end, a huge stone platform back of which Nature formed a scenic background. Uptbn this platform stood the actor as, aided between times by the chorus, he narrated mythical stories and legends. The chorus was made up of some fifty or mere persons who sang songs that tended more or less to the con- tinuation of the tales of the actor and that were also in keeping with the sadness or joyousness of the story. The arrangement of the stage varied somewhat in the different structures. in some buildings it occupied the center while in others it was at one end. The chorus, entering close by the orchestra, Paced to and fro or engaged in solemn choral dance during the 'chant- ing of the choral odes. In the center of the orchestra arose the thymele, an elavated alter as high as the stage and made up of a series of steps upon which the chorus stood when not performing. This thymele was uaually built in the center of the whole edifice and from it were drawn all measurements of the semicircular amphithe- atre. As the presentation of a drama was a religious function, the citizens of wealth and prominence emulated one-another in the equip- ment and training of the chorus. This chorus performed its stately dances around the burtinE alter of Dionysus while they sang the Dithyrambus in honor of their god. During the intervals between the song and dance, many rude performances arose, in some of which the young men sacrificed a goat. Here we have the begining of tragedy, from a Greek word which meant, "The Goat Song: The so-called dialogue together with the choral song was first given by Thespis, B. C. 535, in the form of a tragedy. He ale° introduced certain alterations in the costuming of the actor. Later Pr4tinas systematized the so-called "artistic form" of tragedy. He, also, introduced temporary wood-scaffoldings which were removed after the performance was over and put away to be set up again when the time come for another ceremony. In the earlier part of the fifth century, B. C., we find Phynichus making an advance in tragic develo- pement by the employment of novebent upon the stage. This adri.ition was the result of his endeavor to bring before his Athenian audience the scene of the capture of Miltus by the Persians. In the fifth century B. C., tragedy beclne very popular and many poets entered into the annual competition for popular favors and prizes. It is during this period that we find Aeschylus, Sophocles and ''huripides, the three great names in Greek tragic art. Of the writers who competed for the prizes at these annual fest- ivals, Aeschylus stands supreme in both depth of thought and manner of expression. He was born in 525 B. C. of an Hupatria family, at that time one of the oldest and proudest of Attica. Thus born and re)xed amid the opportunities and posflibilities of wealth and favor, Aeschylus did not lack any essential to make his education broad and /7 thorough. Still further, he was endowed with those natural g4ct,s that enabled him to become the leading writer of ancient tragedy. His personal temperament was in keeping with his genius. At a com- paratively late period he participated in the public festivals to Dionysus in competition for the tragic prize. His first prize was won at the age of fifty and out of the seventy tragedies that he wrote thirteen received the prize. Aeschylus joined the Grecian forces and fought at Marathon against the Persians. It was from this experience that he obtained material for his great tragedy "The Persians; produced some years later. As a dramatist, Aeschylus stands very high and is distinguished by a style all his own. His influence was early felt by his intro- duction into the play of a second actor and of new subjects, although still confined to the Dionysiac cycle. He turned to the historic legends rather than to the problems of his time for material of his dramas. The poems of Homer supplied him with an almost inexhaustablo amount of material more lofty and noble than the subjects of the old Dionysian mimes or the dramas of Thespis. He was likewise the first dramatist to employ those strange compound words which he no doubt coined to startle the ears of the spectators as he had startled their eyes by his hideous animals Ind dragons. There is a vastness without limit pervading the tragedies of Aeschylus. This vastness is well illustrated by his discription and use of the Caucasus mountains in "Prometheus Bound; of the sea in Oceanides" and of the darkness of the bottomless depths in "The F-nehides: On the other hand his beautiful style of expression is well shown in "Agamemnon? Then speaking of the heat he says,- "And the heat, when Ocean on its noon-tide couch, windless reclined and slept without a wave:' In "The Libation Poures" we find the ghastly statement that :- "Because of blood that mother-earth has drunk, The guilt of slaughter that will vengence work Is fixed indelibly" In some instances Aeschylus moves his audience with awe and with the thought that crime is to be avenged: "The anvil-block of vengence firm is set And Fate, the swordsmith, hammers on the bronze Before hand; and the child Is brought into its home, And in due time the debt of guilt is paid By the dnrked souled Erinnys, famed of old, For blood of former dayit The varietyr:of dramatic talent exhibited by Aeschylus is especially marked as, for instance, in the tragedy of "The Persians" the spectator sees after the terrible conflict:- The hulls of ships of the vanquished foe floating capsized nor could the sea be seen, Strewn as it was with wrecks and carcasses. And all the shores and rocks are full of corpses. And every ship is widly rowed in flight. All that composed the Persian Armament" This battle scene well illustrates- that vastness and terror which Aeschylus frequently excites in the minds of the spectators. In such tragedies as "The Persians; he moves us to the very verge of fear. He marie his own world and inhabited it with people to suit his own taste and fancy. The works of Aeschylus are thought by some to be the greatest 87/ of ancient dramatic writings. There is something both forbidding and attractive in his ciritings. He has a fascinating manner of ex- pression that would move the reader to an intensity of interest and holds him spellbound in an amazed wonderment of the present together with a fear and breathless expectancy of the future. If we compare the works of Aeschylus with those of Sophocles and 7uripides :;e are, no doubt, safe in saying that although Sopho- cles was a writer of great traedy, he lacked that vloumn of inten- sity and that strength of character-portrayal which are so marked in the productions of Aeschylus. Euripides, on the other hand, is in some cases offensive and corrupt. His life was spent in the basest of society and a more or less prominent tint of that social influence has crept into his writings, thus causing them to hold a less popular place than those of Sophocles and Aeschylus. Aeschylus came to suffer much from envy and Under his burden he left Athens never to return, and settling at Gela under the Patronage of Huron, he spent the last three years of his life engaged in writing. His name will were stand among the first of those who have enriched the world by their literary art. 

Aeschylus and his relation to the Greek drama

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Aeschylus and his relation to the Greek drama

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