The Aeschylean Treatment of Myth and Legend

Abstract

It is the part of sound criticism to beware of rashly assuming tendencies of any kind in dramatic poetry. The imaginative act of realising situation and character requires no end beyond itself. The faculty is satisfied with its own mere exercise; which may be as widely varied as the fables on which it works, or as human experience itself. If in single dramatists we find certain limitations, or an apparent preference for a particular class of subjects, we must not rush to hasty conclusions, but should distinguish as far as possible between accidental and essential differences, the former depending on the subject-matter which either chance or popularity threw in the artist's way, as jealousy for example in the Spanish drama, the latter resulting from the colour of his own thoughts, and his individual attitude (as an artist) towards the universe and towards mankind.The power of Aeschylus as a mere dramatist is so great, that the neglect of such precautions is, if possible, more than usually disastrous to the study of him; while on the other hand, they are more than ever necessary in his case, because certain important tendencies, both of the man and of the age, are so apparent in him. In attempting, therefore, to characterise some of these underlying motives, it is necessary to warn the reader at the outset against expecting anything like a complete description or survey. Such motives are very far from accounting for that complex phenomenon, the Aeschylean drama. At most they do but constitute one of several factors that have worked together with the supreme dramatic instinct in the creation of it. Nor shall we be tempted by any theory into the error of supposing that the same motives are to be traced everywhere. Variety is the chief note of the highest invention, and though few chords remain to us of the Aeschylean lyre, they are suggestive of a widely ranging plectrum.—Readers of the Eumenides or of the Prometheus, however, cannot help surmising an intention of the poet standing behind his creation.