Lecture 7 The House of Atreus Poetics Tragedy - 090038

DON HONORIO VENTURA STATE UNIVERSITY COLLEGE OF EDUCATION
Pampanga, Philippines Center of Development for Teacher Education
The Great Families of Mythology

Joyce Ann M. Tolentino, MFA, LPT
jamtolentino@dhvsu.edu.ph
Joyce Ann M. Tolentino, MFA, LPT / DHVSU Main Campus / COE / 2nd Semester, AY 2022 -2023
ARISTOTLE’S INFLUENCE ON OUR
UNDERSTADING OF TRAGEDY
The Poetics
➢ Is in part Aristotle's response to his teacher, Plato,
who argues in The Republic that poetry is
representation of mere appearances and is thus
misleading and morally suspect.
➢Rather than concluding that poets should be
banished from the perfect society, as does Plato,
Aristotle attempts to describe the social function, and
the ethical utility, of art.
➢Tragic hero concept
The Tragic Hero Concept
➢Oedipus is the model of the “tragic hero,” because
the concept is based on him.
➢Because of his hamartia (mistake; tragic flaw), he
suffers a peripeteia (reversal of fortune), which, for
Aristotle, is the heart of tragedy.
➢For Aristotle, this reversal was the key towards
rousing fear and pity in the audience, which led to
CATHARSIS.
The Tragic Hero Concept
➢A word from Greek religion, catharsis indicates
ritual purification from pollution, an important
concept for Greek life.
➢This pollution, or miasma, came about as the
result of crime, especially murder.
➢Aristotle uses the term catharsis to refer to the
purging of excessive emotions from a person.
The POETICS
➢Aristotle identifies tragedy as the most refined
version of poetry dealing with lofty matters and
comedy as the most refined version of poetry dealing
with base matters.
➢Aristotle traces a brief and speculative history of
tragedy as it evolved from dithyrambic hymns in praise
of the god Dionysus. Dithyrambs were sung by a large
choir, sometimes featuring a narrator.
The POETICS
➢Aeschylus (father of tragedy; Prometheus Bound)
invented tragedy by bringing a second actor into
dialogue with the narrator.
➢Sophocles innovated further by introducing a third
actor, and gradually tragedy shifted to its
contemporary dramatic form.
The POETICS
TRAGEDY is an imitation, through action rather than
narration, of a serious, complete, and ample action, by
means of language rendered pleasant at different places
in the constituent parts by each of the aids [used to
make language more delightful], in which imitation
there is also effected through pity and fear its catharsis
of these and similar emotions.
Tragedy
Aristotle defines tragedy according to seven characteristics:
(1) It is mimetic.
(2) It is serious.
(3) It tells a full story of an appropriate length.
(4) It contains rhythm and harmony,
(5) Rhythm and harmony occur in different combinations in
different parts of the tragedy.
(6) It is performed rather than narrated.
(7) It arouses feelings of pity and fear and then purges these
feelings through catharsis.
SIX COMPONENT PARTS OF TRAGEDY
1. PLOT
A well-formed plot must have a beginning, which is
not a necessary consequence of any previous action;
a middle, which follows logically from the beginning;
and an end, which follows logically from the middle
and from which no further action necessarily follows.
The best kinds of surprises are brought about
by peripeteia, or reversal of fortune, and anagnorisis,
or discovery.
2. CHARACTER
For a tragedy to arouse pity and fear, we must
observe a hero who is relatively noble going from
happiness to misery as a result of error on the part
of the hero.
Since both the character of the hero and the plot
must have logical consistency, Aristotle concludes
that the untying of the plot must follow as a
necessary consequence of the plot and not from
stage artifice, like a deus ex machina
3. THOUGHT
a. What is possible within the limits of the situation;
and b. What is fitting—a function which is the same
as that of language when used in statesmanship and
oratory.
4. DICTION
This is the expression of thought by means of
language—a power which is the same in both
metrical and non-metrical language.
5. MELODY
Of the remaining elements, music has the
greatest enriching power.
6. SPECTACLE
While quite appealing, it is the most
inartistic and has the least affinity with
poetry; for the essential power of tragedy
does not depend upon the presentation and
the actors.
After defending poetry against charges that it
deals with improbable or impossible events,
Aristotle concludes by weighing tragedy
against epic poetry and determining that
tragedy is on the whole superior.
Tantalus
• The story of the House of Atreus is mostly important
because it led to the great tragic plays of Aeschylus.
• Hamilton takes these as a source along
with Pindar, Homer, Ovid, and Apollodorus.
• The House of Atreus includes Agamemnon, his
wife Clytemnestra, his children Iphigenia, Orestes,
and Electra, and his brother Menelaus.
• The whole family is cursed because their
ancestor, Tantalus, sinned horribly against the gods.
The Curse
• The family is cursed because an ancestor, Tantalus,
a son of Zeus who often visited Olympus,
mysteriously decided to kill, cook, and serve his son
Pelops to the Olympians.
The Punishment
• Discerning his heinous
crime, the gods send
Tantalus to be tormented
in Hades, where he stands
in a pool of water with
fruit dangling above his
head.
• The water sinks away

when he bends to drink it,
and the fruit rises up when
he reaches to eat it. He is
eternally tantalized.
• Tantalus’s crime initiates

generations of violence
and tragedy, each crime
begetting further
bloodshed.
Pelops
• The gods
restore Pelops to life,
but they have to make
him an ivory shoulder
because one of the
goddesses accidentally
ate a bite of Tantalus’s
food.
• Pelops seeks to marry

the Princess
Hippodamia.
The Condition
• She can only be won by the suitor who beats her
father in a chariot race; if the suitor loses, he is
killed.
• In one version, Hippodamia and her father’s

charioteer, Myrtilus, conspire to give Pelops the
victory, but Pelops later kills Myrtilus, bringing
further bad luck on his family.
Niobe
• Tantalus’s daughter
Niobe decides she is the
equal of the gods and
demands that the people
of Thebes worship her.
• As punishment, Apollo,
and Artemis kill her
seven sons and seven
daughters.
• Weeping continually, she

turns into a rock always
wet with tears.
Atreus and Thyestes
• Pelops has two
sons, Atreus and
Thyestes, who are
also doomed.
• Thyestes seduces
Atreus’s wife.
Atreus and Thyestes
• Atreus kills Thyestes’ two young children, cuts
them up, and serves them to their father to eat.
Agamemnon and His Children
• Agamemnon, Atreus’s son, is the next generation
of sorrow.
• Homer first mentions Agamemnon’s tragedy in
the Odyssey, and in this first version
Agamemnon is killed by his wife’s
lover Aegisthus.
• The story later changes subtly, and becomes a
new incarnation of the twisted vengeance and
justice of the House of Atreus.
Agamemnon and His Children
• Agamemnon, Menelaus’s brother, sacrifices his
daughter Iphigenia to placate Artemis and
procure favorable sailing winds during the
Trojan War.
• Agamemnon’s wife, Clytemnestra, takes a
lover—Aegisthus, son of Thyestes—while
Agamemnon is away in Troy.
• Outraged at the sacrifice of her daughter
Iphigenia, she plots revenge against her
husband, while Aegisthus vows revenge for his
father.
The Murder of Agamemnon
When Agamemnon returns from Troy with Cassandra, the prophetess

everyone always ignores, Cassandra foretells her and Agamemnon’s
deaths but is unheeded. The two enter the palace, and Clytemnestra
and Aegisthus kill them.
Orestes and Electra
• Two of Agamemnon’s children
still live to perpetuate the
bloodshed: his daughter,
Electra, whom Aegisthus and
Clytemnestra treat cruelly, and
son, Orestes, whom a family
friend has taken to protect him
from Aegisthus.
• Orestes sets out for vengeance

when he comes of age—even
though he knows this means the
terrible crime of matricide—and
the Oracle at Delphi confirms
him in this path.
Orestes and Electra
• Pretending to be a messenger
bearing news of Orestes’
death, Orestes is welcomed
into the palace, where he kills
his mother and her lover. He
instantly sees the terrible
avenging Furies pursuing him,
and he begins years of
frenzied wanderings.
• Finally, with Apollo’s aid, he
appeals to Athena, who pities
him and turns the Furies into
the Eumenides, “protectors of
the suppliant”.
Iphigenia and the Taurians
• In another version of the story, Artemis grows horrified
just before Iphigenia’s sacrifice and rescues her.
• Artemis brings Iphigenia to the land of the Taurians and
makes her a priestess of her own temple.
• Regrettably, this job involves sacrificing humans, so
Iphigenia goes about her duties very reluctantly.
• The Oracle at Delphi tells Orestes that for his last
cleansing act, he must go to the land of the Taurians and
procure the image of Artemis from its temple.
• Orestes and his friend Pylades set out on the quest, but
the Taurians capture them almost immediately and
intend to sacrifice them.
• Orestes is taken to Iphigenia, the priestess, but the
siblings fail to recognize each other because they have
been separated for so long.
• Preparing Orestes and Pylades for death, Iphigenia asks
where they are from.
• On hearing they are from Mycenae, she asks them about
her family.
• She offers to set Pylades free if he takes a message to her
brother, Orestes, telling him that she is alive and that he
must rescue her.
• Orestes jumps up and reveals his identity. The three
begin their escape with the image of Artemis.
• King Thoas of the Taurians pursues, but lets them escape
when Athena says they are fated to do so.

Lecture 7 The House of Atreus Poetics Tragedy - 090038

Uploaded by

Document Information

Original Description:

Original Title

Copyright

Available Formats

Share this document

Share or Embed Document

Sharing Options

Did you find this document useful?

Is this content inappropriate?

Copyright:

Available Formats

Lecture 7 The House of Atreus Poetics Tragedy - 090038

Uploaded by

Copyright:

Available Formats

DON HONORIO VENTURA STATE UNIVERSITY COLLEGE OF EDUCATION

Pampanga, Philippines Center of Development for Teacher Education

The Great Families of Mythology

• The water sinks away

• Tantalus’s crime initiates

• Pelops seeks to marry

• In one version, Hippodamia and her father’s

• Weeping continually, she

When Agamemnon returns from Troy with Cassandra, the prophetess

• Orestes sets out for vengeance

You might also like