The Dramatic Structure of Agamemnon

In later antiquity it was universally held that Aeschylus was the most given, of the three fifth century Athenian tragic poets, to lavish spectacular display. This view rested on three foundations: first, consistent misinterpretation of the many jokes which Aristophanes makes in The Frogs about the archaic grandeur of Aeschylean drama — jokes which on close examination revolve almost entirely around the style of Aeschylus' language; second, the practice of importing scenes of spectacle and crowds of extras into Hellenistic and Roman productions of classical Greek tragedy; and, third, the ascription to this author of the play, Prometheus Bound, which undoubtedly calls for elaborate scenic requirements. The authenticity of Prometheus Bound has been increasingly called in question during the twentieth century: and no scholar who is prepared to accept the arguments and comparisons to be found in Mark Griffith's recent study would now care to place the composition of Prometheus Bound less than twenty years after the death of Aeschylus.If Prometheus Bound is not to be ascribed to Aeschylus, six of his plays survive. They are distinguished by their extreme theatrical economy; no device is used in them unless it bears close relevance to the playwright's purpose and theme. In his pioneering study, The Stagecraft of Aeschylus, Oliver Taplin has drawn attention to a number of ways in which this feature is to be observed in the surviving plays; and his penetrating observations are by no means confined to the main subject of the book, which is the dramatic use made in Greek tragedy of the entrances and exits of the characters and of the chorus. But much remains to be done, before we can seriously claim to understand the genius of Aeschylus and his successors as theatre craftsmen. I want now to introduce and open up an area of debate which I find to have been seriously neglected in the work on Aeschylus which I have read.