Aeschylus’ Oresteia

Course Description

The graduate seminar on the only surviving Greek trilogy, Aeschylus’ Oresteia, focuses on close readings of key passages from all three plays—Agamemnon, Libation Bearers, and Eumenides. The course examines the trilogy’s theatrical power, political resonances, and gender dynamics, with particular attention to questions of authority, violence, kinship, and the reconfiguration of justice from the oikos to the polis. It also explores Aeschylus’ engagement with scientific, philosophical, and legal thought, situating the plays within broader intellectual debates of the fifth century BCE. Readings will be conducted in Greek for those with the necessary language preparation, while students without Greek will work with reliable English translations; all discussion will remain fully integrated across linguistic levels. Throughout, the seminar attends both to the original performance context of the trilogy and to its enduring relevance, asking how Aeschylus forges a unified dramatic and intellectual vision that continues to shape thinking about law, gender, and collective responsibility.

Code

AS.040.674

Credits

3

Subject

Classics