Biography of Aeschylus Creativity

The next page of the work of Aeschylus, the “father of the tragedy” of the early tragedies of Aeschil, whom the ancients were still called the “father of the tragedy”, were set at the turn of the VI and V centuries. Since that time, theatrical performances turned out to be the most effective means of educating citizens of the first democratic state, since the main norms of behavior were clearly justified in dramas and answers were given to the most urgent issues of the socio-political life of that time.

Fulfilling new tasks assigned to it by the state and society, the tragedy "becomes serious." Traces of the former cheerful tragedy are preserved in a playful satiri drama, which each playwright is obliged to complete his tragic trilogy. Our information about the predecessors and senior contemporaries of Aeschylus is very scarce. But it is known that before him the tragedy was a pathetic lyrical cantata of the choir, almost devoid of action.

Thus, the tragedy acquired an action, that is, it became a drama. With the introduction of the second actor, a dramatic conflict was possible, which forms the genuine basis of the tragedy, and, in the words of Aristotle, thanks to all this, she "later reached its illustrious greatness." Aeschylus, whose biography is very poorly known, was born in G.

at the age of 25 for the first time in dramatic competitions, but only at the age of forty he won the first victory. The drama of Aeschylus of this period has not been preserved. Probably, most of these years, Aeschylus devoted to the war for the freedom of his homeland. By the beginning of the 5th century The Persian kings who proclaimed themselves by the Lords of "all people from sunrise to sunset" have already expanded their Asian borders from Indus to Libya and from Arabia to Gellespont.

The further path of the Persians lay on the Balkans, opening access to the entire eastern Mediterranean. In the face of a formidable enemy with his powerful marine and land forces, the Greeks managed to overcome their internal disagreements and rally for rebuff to the Persians. Athens and Sparta led the struggle for the freedom and independence of all Hellas.

Aeschylus fought and was wounded at the Marathon, where the Athenian army inflicted the first defeat of the Persians. His brother died in the same battle when, pursuing enemies, he tried to hold a Persian ship with his hand, who had set off from the shore. Then Aeschylus fought under Salamin, where the Persian fleet was defeated, participated in the battle of the Plai, where Eshil always put his military-patriotic activity above his merits as a playwright and even composed an epitaph, in which he noted only his military merits: Eugorionov Son, the Askil of the Afa bone, the ears of Geli, rich in grain; The courage is remembered by his marathon grove and a tribe of long -haired Medes, who recognized him in the battle.

After the first victory in the tragic competition of Aeschils for twenty years, he was the favorite poet of the Athenians, then losing the championship to the young Sophocles. But two years before his death, the summer poet won the last brilliant victory over his rivals of the Oresteus trilogy. Soon after, he went to Sicily, where he died in a gel in the city according to the testimony of ancient sources, Aeschylus wrote about 80 dramas.

The literary fertility of the Greek authors characterizes their attitude to writing, which they considered the most important form of civil duty to us only 7 tragedies of Aeschylus, not counting the numerous disparate fragments. The early of the preserved tragedies, the "petitioners", also resembles the lyrical choir cantata. There is almost no action in it. All attention is focused on the choir, which is the main character.

The Libyan king Danaya had 50 daughters, and his brother Egypt had 50 sons. The latter wished to marry their cousins ​​and forcely forced Danaya and Danaid to give consent. But on the wedding night, Danaids, except for one, were killed by their husbands. In the tragedy of Aeschylus, Danaids, fleeing their pursuers, arrive in the Greek city of Argos to the king of Pelasgu, begging to save and protect them from Egyptiads.

The laws of hospitality encourage Pelasga to help the unhappy, but the salvation of the girls threatens the war on all his people. Pelasg is characterized as an ideal ruler who always acts in jointly with the people. After long fluctuations, he requests a national assembly, which gives consent to help the Danaids. The tragic conflict of the ruler and the people found its permission - the will of Pelasga and its duty turned out to be uniform.

But there is a war ahead with the Egyptiads, about which the rough and daring messenger of the sons of Egypt is talking about, who came to demand the issuance of girls. Aeschylus put a tetralogy in Athens, from which the Persian tragedy dedicated to the clash of Persia with the Hellas and the defeat of the Persian army near the island of Salamin in the city is preserved, although real historical events are based on the Persians, they are revealed in the mythological aspect.

Aeschylus explains the defeat of the Persian power of the punishment of the gods for power and the immense pride of the ruler of the Persians of King Xerxes. In order to dramatize the action of Aeschylus, he takes his audience to the city of Suzi, the capital of Persia.Heavy forebodings excite the old Persian advisers who make up the choir of tragedy. Alarmed by an ominous dream, the mother of Xerxes causes the shadow of the deceased husband from the tomb, who predicts the defeat of the Persians, sent by the gods as punishment for the audacity of Xerxes.

The pile of names unusual for Greek hearing, the endless enumeration of states, cities, leaders is evidence of archaic dramatic technology. The new feeling of fear, intense expectation, which imbued with the replicas of the queen and the coral of the choir, is new. Finally, the Xerxes himself appears. In torn clothes, exhausted by a long way, he bitterly mourns his misfortune.

The mythological perception of events did not prevent Aeschylus correctly establish the balance of power both on the issue of personal behavior of a person and objective necessity, and in the assessment of the political situation. The Eshil’s military power contrasts the freedom of the Greeks, about which Persian elders say: the ill -fated fate of the Xerxes, who wished to make a sea of ​​land and chain to chop Gellespont, was supposed to be a warning to everyone who would encroach on a free Allad.

In the “Persian” tragedy, the role of the choir has already been significantly reduced compared to the “petitioners”, the role of the actor has been increased, but the actor has not yet become the main carrier of action. The first tragedy with the tragic hero in the modern sense of the word is "seven against Thebes." The plot of the tragedy is taken from the Theban cycle of myths.

The king Lai once committed a crime, and the gods predicted his death by his son’s hand. He ordered the slave to kill the newborn-Batteness, but he regretted and handed over the child to another slave. The boy was adopted by the Corinthian king with the queen and called Oedipus. When Oedipus grew up, God predicted to him that he would kill his father and marry his mother.

Considering himself the son of the Corinthian couple, Oedipus left Corinth and went to wander. On the way, he met with barking and killed him. Then he came to the Thebes, saved the city from the monster of the Sphinx, and grateful Thebans gave him the wives of the Dowager Queen. Oedipus became the king of Thebes. When Edip learned about his involuntary crimes, he blinded himself and cursed the children.

After death, the sons quarreled among themselves. Polnik fled from Thebes, gathered an army and went to the city gate. This begins the tragedy, the latter in the trilogy of bark and Edip. Like the Homerian Hector, Etheokl is the only defender of the besieged city. Just like Hector, he is doomed to death, being a bearer of the tribal curse of the Labdakids but, unlike Hector, belonging to the rejected family and the inevitability of close death made him gloomy and gloomy: the crying and moans of Theban girls who learned about the approach of enemies cause him disgust and anger, but not pity.

However, Etheokl is a valiant defender of the Fatherland, a brave and decisive commander. He voluntarily enters into martial arts with his brother, realizing that, besides him, no one will overcome the policeman, and otherwise Thebes will be given to the invaders to be plundered. Conscious of the inevitability of his death, Etheokl chooses for himself such a death that becomes the key to the victory of Thebes.

Both brothers die in a duel, and the Thebans joyfully exclaim: the yoke of captivity will not put on our city: the mighty warriors fell to the ashes of the praise of the praise .. The personal will of Etheokla was turned to the salvation of the homeland, he reached the desired and died a heroic death. In Athens, Prometheus has long been revered along with Hephaestus as a god of fire. At the festival dedicated to him, young men competed in running with the burning torches of the Prometes Fire.

The effect of the tragedy of Aeschylus occurs on the edge of the earth, in the wild country of the Scythians. The Power and Strength, the rude servants of Zeus, lead the constrained Prometheus, and the Hephaestus against his will, by order of Zeus, guesses Titan to a high cliff, the remaining promethee mourns his fate, urging the nature of his suffering: oh you, the air is divine, and you, about the winds, are fast -winged, and the rivers, and the laughter of the sea Inexplicable waves, the earth is a zoomater, the circle of the whole sun, you are all in witnesses to the call: look that now, God, I suffer from the gods!

The mournful monologue of Prometheus interrupt unexpected sounds: there is a choir depicting the daughters of the god Ocean who flew on a winged chariot to console the sufferer. The oceanids perform the first song of the Papod choir entering the orkhestr and ask Prometheus to tell what made Zeus resort to such cruel punishment. The story of Prometheus opens the first episodia, that is, the first action of the drama.

The fault of Prometheus is in his love for people and in an effort to protect them from the unfair attacks of the gods. Wanting people of happiness, Prometheus hid the secrets of the future from them, gave hope and, finally, brought fire. He did this, knowing firmly that, the old ocean himself on the winged dragon flies from the sea depths to console Prometheus.

But I will promp it alien to humility and repentance.The ocean flies away, and the first action ends with the song-with a song of the oceanid choir, with which all the people of the Earth mourn, the sea abyss mourn, crushing the coastal rocks with an angry surf, the silver waves of rivers cry, and even the gloomy Hades shudders deafly in its underground harsh drives.

The second action opens up with a large monologue of Prometheus, listing good deeds, rendered to them to people: once, like miserable ants, they swarmed in underground caves, devoid of senses and reason. Prometheus "showed them the sunrises and sunsets of heavenly stars," they were taught by the "science of numbers and literacy", "gave them a creative memory, mother of muses." Thanks to him, people learned to tame wild animals and swim around the seas, he revealed to them the secrets of healing and extracted for them the wealth of the earth's bowels - "iron, and silver, and gold, and copper." For the era of the formation and victorious statement of Athenian democracy, which proclaimed the freedom of the human mind and called a person to active creative activity, a faith in the progressive development of human society is characteristic.

She found an artistic expression in the image of Titan Prometheus. The pessimistic ideas of Hesiod about the public regression, reflected in the myths of Pandora, sent to people as a punishment for the crime of Prometheus, and did not meet sympathy. According to the centuries-old mythological tradition, social progress is embodied in Aeschylus in the image of the God-Blagod, who was the root cause of all the cultural achievements of civilization.

The Titan Prometheus becomes in the tragedy of Aeschylus an active fighter for justice, the opponent of evil and violence. The greatness of his image is also emphasized by the fact that he, a seer, knew about his future suffering, but in the name of the happiness of people and the triumph of truth, deliberately condemned himself to torture. The enemy of Prometheus, the enemy of people, the unbridled rapist and the despot - Zeus himself, the father of the gods and people, the ruler of the universe.