The Chorus of Prometheus Bound: Harmony of Suffering

Abstract

Few extant Greek tragedies have been subjected to the sweeping formal and dramatic criticisms which have been directed towards thePrometheus Bound. Indeed, this play contains so many problems and idiosyncracies of metre, language, staging and structure that a large number of modern scholars have even come to question Aeschylean authorship of the play. The arguments on both sides of the authorship debate have been thoroughly presented by C. J. Herington and Mark Griffith, and little more of a decisive nature can be said on this subject unless further evidence should surface. This stalemate would, perhaps, be a fortunate circumstance, if it would encourage critics to put aside the unresolvable authorship question, to follow the commendable example of Oliver Taplin in hisStagecraft of Aeschylus, and to study thePrometheus Boundas a drama, as a theatrical production. It is time to seek dramatic answers to the dramatic problems which plague thePrometheus Bound.