Brill’s companion to the reception of Aeschylus

654 Pages·2018·4.357 MB·English

by  Kennedy, Rebecca Futo

Brill’s Companion to the Reception of Aeschylus
Brill’s Companions to
Classical Reception
Series Editor
Kyriakos N. Demetriou (University of Cyprus)
VOLUME 11
The titles published in this series are listed at brill.com/bccr
Brill’s Companion to the
Reception of Aeschylus
Edited by
Rebecca Futo Kennedy
LEIDEN | BOSTON
Cover illustration: Rockwell Kent (American, 1882–1972) “Prometheus” DU1946.66. From the Denison
Museum collection. Printed with permission.
The Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available online at http://catalog.loc.gov
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2017023560
Typeface for the Latin, Greek, and Cyrillic scripts: “Brill”. See and download: brill.com/brill-typeface.
issn 2213-1426
isbn 978-90-04-24932-5 (hardback)
isbn 978-90-04-34882-0 (e-book)
Copyright 2018 by Koninklijke Brill nv, Leiden, The Netherlands.
Koninklijke Brill NV incorporates the imprints Brill, Brill Hes & De Graaf, Brill Nijhoff, Brill Rodopi and
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Contents
Acknowledgements ix
List of Figures x
List of Abbreviations xii
Author Biographies xiii
Introduction: The Reception of Aeschylus 1
Rebecca Futo Kennedy
Part 1
Pre-Modern Receptions
1 The Reception of Aeschylus in Sicily 9
David G. Smith
2 The Comedians’ Aeschylus 54
David Rosenbloom
3 Aristotle’s Reception of Aeschylus: Reserved Without Malice 88
Dana LaCourse Munteanu
4 Aeschylus in the Hellenistic Period 109
Sebastiana Nervegna
5 Aeschylus in the Roman Empire 129
George W. M. Harrison
6 Aeschylus in Byzantium 179
Christos Simelidis
Part 2
Modern Receptions
7 Aeschylus and Opera 205
Michael Ewans
8 Aeschylus in Germany 225
Theodore Ziolkowski
vi contents
9 Inglorious Barbarians: Court Intrigue and Military Disaster Strike
Xerxes, “The Sick Man of Europe” 243
Gonda Van Steen
10 Transtextual Transformations of Prometheus Bound in Percy Bysshe
Shelley’s Prometheus Unbound: Prometheus’ Gifts to
Humankind 270
Fabien Desset
11 Aeschylus and Frankenstein, or The Modern Prometheus,
by Mary Shelley 292
Ana González-Rivas Fernández
12 An Aeschylean Waterloo: Responding to War from the Oresteia to
Vanity Fair 323
Barbara Witucki
13 Form and Money in Wagner’s Ring and Aeschylean Tragedy 348
Richard Seaford
14 Eumenides and Newmenides: Academic Furies in Edwardian
Cambridge 362
Patrick J. Murphy and Fredrick Porcheddu
15 The Broadhead Hypothesis: Did Aeschylus Perform Word Repetition
in Persians? 381
Stratos E. Constantinidis
16 Persians On French Television: An Opera-Oratorio Echoing the
Algerian War 408
Gabriel Sevilla
17 Aeschylus’ Oresteia on British Television 430
Amanda Wrigley
18 Orestes On Trial in Africa: Pasolini’s Appunti per un’ Orestiade
Africana and Sissako’s Bamako 455
Tom Hawkins
19 Reception of the Plays of Aeschylus in South Africa 474
Kevin J. Wetmore, Jr.
contents vii
20 In Search of Prometheus: Aeschylean Wanderings in Latin
America 488
Jacques A. Bromberg
21 Avatars of Aeschylus: O’Neill to Herzog/Golder 509
Marianne McDonald
22 The Overlooked οἰκονομία of Aeschylus’ Agamemnon and Stanley
Kubrick’s The Shining 528
Geoffrey Bakewell
23 “Now Harkonnen Shall Kill Harkonnen”: Aeschylus, Dynastic
Violence, and Twofold Tragedies in Frank Herbert’s Dune 553
Brett M. Rogers
24 “Save Our City”: The Curious Absence of Aeschylus in Modern
Political Thought 582
Arlene W. Saxonhouse
25 Political Theory in Aeschylean Drama: Ancient Themes and their
Contemporary Reception 603
Larissa Atkison and Ryan K. Balot
Index 625

Acknowledgements
This book has taken a long time and much has changed from how it was first
imagined to its final form. The primary individuals I want to acknowledge here
are two scholars who started with the project, but could not be with us to fin-
ish it.
Kate Bosher (1974–2013). Kate was originally asked to write the chapter on
Aeschylus in Sicily. Although she is no longer with us, her work on Sicily and
non-Attic theatre should not be forgotten. Her dissertation and the edited vol-
ume Theatre Outside Athens (Oxford, 2012) are seminal works and will con-
tinue to influence the field for generations. Her numerous contributions on
Sicilian drama to volumes and articles have laid the ground work for much
great work to come and will continue to impact and inspire us all.
Philip Watts (1961–2014). I found Phil, a well-known French literature and film
scholar at Columbia, while playing around in Google Scholar. There, I came
upon an article titled “Aeschylus Soup” (2008, Contemporary French Civilization
32: 113–132) on French New Wave cinema, which I immediately fell in love with.
I contacted him and, it turned out, he was beginning a new project that would
take him back to Aeschylus and ancient tragedy and its persistence in postwar
French literature and film. He was excited to write a chapter for this volume.
Sadly, it was not completed at the time of his passing, though he did complete
and publish a broader examination of tragic forms as “Remnants of Tragedy”
(2012, Yale French Studies 121: 155–68). I encourage you all to read both.
Others without whom this volume would not have been completed are:
Kyriakos Demetriou, for inviting me to create the volume; the editorial team
at Brill, whose patience has been a true godsend; Max Goldman and Elly
Kennedy, my family; Sarah Baker, and Megan Hancock, my staff at the Denison
Museum—thank you for your patience and understanding; and, Kim Coplin,
Provost at Denison University, for your support.
List of Figures
4.1 Calyx-krater, Apulian (Greek), Puglia, Ruvo. BM F271. © The Trustees
of the British Museum 123
12.1 Vanity Fair Becky as Clytemnestra. Permission to reprint provided
by The Division of Rare and Manuscript Collections, Cornell
University 332
12.2 Vanity Fair Chapter 4, initial letter “P”. Permission to reprint
provided by The Division of Rare and Manuscript Collections,
Cornell University 334
12.3 Vanity Fair Mr. Joseph entangled. Permission to reprint provided
by The Division of Rare and Manuscript Collections, Cornell
University 336
12.4 Vanity Fair Becky’s second appearance in the character of
Clytemnestra. Permission to reprint provided by The Division of
Rare and Manuscript Collections, Cornell University 337
12.5 Flaxman’s Furies 3. Permission to reprint provided by The Division
of Rare and Manuscript Collections, Cornell University 339
12.6 Vanity Fair, Chapter 14, initial letter “S”. Permission to reprint pro-
vided by The Division of Rare and Manuscript Collections, Cornell
University 340
12.7 Vanity Fair, Chapter 32, vignette capital. Permission to reprint
provided by The Division of Rare and Manuscript Collections,
Cornell University 341
12.8 Flaxman’s “The Descent of Discord.” Permission to reprint
provided by The Division of Rare and Manuscript Collections,
Cornell University 341
12.9 Flaxman’s “Furies 4.” Permission to reprint provided by The Division
of Rare and Manuscript Collections, Cornell University 342
14.1 Neo-koine verse by MR James advertising the Newmenides.
M. R. James Papers: MRJ/B, King’s College Modern Archives,
University of Cambridge 370
15.1 Attrition of one adjective repetition in five of six translations 397
15.2 Excerpt from the audience survey used at The Ohio State University
readings of Aeschylus’ Persians in 2009 403
16.1 Opening credits for Les Perses (1961), by Jean Prat and
Jean Prodromidès 421
16.2 Viewing the chorus. From Les Perses (1961), by Jean Prat and
Jean Prodromidès 421