It becomes intelligible as
soon as we observe that Sophocles was deliberately seeking what he
regarded as an archaic or "Homeric" style (cf.
soon as we observe that Sophocles was deliberately seeking what he
regarded as an archaic or "Homeric" style (cf.
Euripides - Electra
C.
), and Sophocles' _Electra_ (date
unknown: but perhaps the latest of the three) are based on the particular
piece of legend or history now before us. It narrates how the son and
daughter of the murdered king, Agamemnon, slew, in due course of revenge,
and by Apollo's express command, their guilty mother and her paramour.
Homer had long since told the story, as he tells so many, simply and
grandly, without moral questioning and without intensity. The atmosphere
is heroic. It is all a blood-feud between chieftains, in which Orestes,
after seven years, succeeds in slaying his foe Aegisthus, who had killed
his father. He probably killed his mother also; but we are not directly
told so. His sister may have helped him, and he may possibly have gone mad
afterwards; but these painful issues are kept determinedly in the shade.
Somewhat surprisingly, Sophocles, although by his time Electra and
Clytemnestra had become leading figures in the story and the mother-murder
its essential climax, preserves a very similar atmosphere. His tragedy is
enthusiastically praised by Schlegel for "the celestial purity, the fresh
breath of life and youth, that is diffused over so dreadful a subject. "
"Everything dark and ominous is avoided. Orestes enjoys the fulness of
health and strength. He is beset neither with doubts nor stings of
conscience. " Especially laudable is the "austerity" with which Aegisthus
is driven into the house to receive, according to Schlegel, a specially
ignominious death!
This combination of matricide and good spirits, however satisfactory to
the determined classicist, will probably strike most intelligent readers
as a little curious, and even, if one may use the word at all in
connection with so powerful a play, undramatic.
It becomes intelligible as
soon as we observe that Sophocles was deliberately seeking what he
regarded as an archaic or "Homeric" style (cf. Jebb, Introd. p. xli. ); and
this archaism, in its turn, seems to me best explained as a conscious
reaction against Euripides' searching and unconventional treatment of the
same subject (cf. Wilamowitz in _Hermes_, xviii. pp. 214 ff. ). In the
result Sophocles is not only more "classical" than Euripides; he is more
primitive by far than Aeschylus.
For Aeschylus, though steeped in the glory of the world of legend, would
not lightly accept its judgment upon religious and moral questions, and
above all would not, in that region, play at make-believe. He would not
elude the horror of this story by simply not mentioning it, like Homer, or
by pretending that an evil act was a good one, like Sophocles. He faces
the horror; realises it; and tries to surmount it on the sweep of a great
wave of religious emotion. The mother-murder, even if done by a god's
command, is a sin; a sin to be expiated by unfathomable suffering. Yet,
since the god cannot have commanded evil, it is a duty also. It is a sin
that _must_ be committed.
unknown: but perhaps the latest of the three) are based on the particular
piece of legend or history now before us. It narrates how the son and
daughter of the murdered king, Agamemnon, slew, in due course of revenge,
and by Apollo's express command, their guilty mother and her paramour.
Homer had long since told the story, as he tells so many, simply and
grandly, without moral questioning and without intensity. The atmosphere
is heroic. It is all a blood-feud between chieftains, in which Orestes,
after seven years, succeeds in slaying his foe Aegisthus, who had killed
his father. He probably killed his mother also; but we are not directly
told so. His sister may have helped him, and he may possibly have gone mad
afterwards; but these painful issues are kept determinedly in the shade.
Somewhat surprisingly, Sophocles, although by his time Electra and
Clytemnestra had become leading figures in the story and the mother-murder
its essential climax, preserves a very similar atmosphere. His tragedy is
enthusiastically praised by Schlegel for "the celestial purity, the fresh
breath of life and youth, that is diffused over so dreadful a subject. "
"Everything dark and ominous is avoided. Orestes enjoys the fulness of
health and strength. He is beset neither with doubts nor stings of
conscience. " Especially laudable is the "austerity" with which Aegisthus
is driven into the house to receive, according to Schlegel, a specially
ignominious death!
This combination of matricide and good spirits, however satisfactory to
the determined classicist, will probably strike most intelligent readers
as a little curious, and even, if one may use the word at all in
connection with so powerful a play, undramatic.
It becomes intelligible as
soon as we observe that Sophocles was deliberately seeking what he
regarded as an archaic or "Homeric" style (cf. Jebb, Introd. p. xli. ); and
this archaism, in its turn, seems to me best explained as a conscious
reaction against Euripides' searching and unconventional treatment of the
same subject (cf. Wilamowitz in _Hermes_, xviii. pp. 214 ff. ). In the
result Sophocles is not only more "classical" than Euripides; he is more
primitive by far than Aeschylus.
For Aeschylus, though steeped in the glory of the world of legend, would
not lightly accept its judgment upon religious and moral questions, and
above all would not, in that region, play at make-believe. He would not
elude the horror of this story by simply not mentioning it, like Homer, or
by pretending that an evil act was a good one, like Sophocles. He faces
the horror; realises it; and tries to surmount it on the sweep of a great
wave of religious emotion. The mother-murder, even if done by a god's
command, is a sin; a sin to be expiated by unfathomable suffering. Yet,
since the god cannot have commanded evil, it is a duty also. It is a sin
that _must_ be committed.
