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Yay for good classes!
Okay, theatre history class starts, and to my bafflement, prof starts us off by having everyone give me a standing ovation, and I'm wondering why.
Well, backtrack to end of last class. We're reading Aeschylus' Oresteia, and we had read Homer's Odyssey last week and the week before that. Well, during the classes, prof had gone on about how the Trojan War got started, and one of the things she mentioned was that Agamemnon had killed Klytemnestra's first husband and baby before raping her, then her father went to war against Agamemnon to try to get her back, but then the two made peace and Klytemnestra had to stay with Agamemnon as his wife.
Now, in Agamemnon she's explaining that she's killing Agamemnon in revenge for his murdering ("sacrificing") their daughter Iphigenia in order to go to war against Troy. She also describes herself as the Goddess Nemesis, one of the Furies (whose job it is to take justice for family murders). Quite frankly, she's right to be pissed at him and want to kill him. However, what kept bugging me is that one would think she'd also be pissed at him for the murders of her first husband and child (especially the baby, since she goes on and on about how baby-killing is bad).
Well, I had brought this issue up with my prof after class ended Monday, and she saw fit to start today's class off with this ponderance. And so we spent the entire lecture time going on and on about why the crimes of the murders of Klytemnestra's first husband and child weren't brought up in the Oresteia, as well as whatever subjects were brought up in connection with it, as part of the discussion. Included in that is womens' and mens' roles to the oikos, and about the fact that she is morally required to take revenge for the deaths of her chilren (even more so than a normal wife, because she is the Goddess Nemesis and a Fury), but at the same time she's committing the same sin because it was her husband who murdered Iphigenia... Yay for Greek plays where everyone's stuck between rocks and hard places!
Anyways, Theatre History is a fun class. :D Yay for fun classes!
Well, backtrack to end of last class. We're reading Aeschylus' Oresteia, and we had read Homer's Odyssey last week and the week before that. Well, during the classes, prof had gone on about how the Trojan War got started, and one of the things she mentioned was that Agamemnon had killed Klytemnestra's first husband and baby before raping her, then her father went to war against Agamemnon to try to get her back, but then the two made peace and Klytemnestra had to stay with Agamemnon as his wife.
Now, in Agamemnon she's explaining that she's killing Agamemnon in revenge for his murdering ("sacrificing") their daughter Iphigenia in order to go to war against Troy. She also describes herself as the Goddess Nemesis, one of the Furies (whose job it is to take justice for family murders). Quite frankly, she's right to be pissed at him and want to kill him. However, what kept bugging me is that one would think she'd also be pissed at him for the murders of her first husband and child (especially the baby, since she goes on and on about how baby-killing is bad).
Well, I had brought this issue up with my prof after class ended Monday, and she saw fit to start today's class off with this ponderance. And so we spent the entire lecture time going on and on about why the crimes of the murders of Klytemnestra's first husband and child weren't brought up in the Oresteia, as well as whatever subjects were brought up in connection with it, as part of the discussion. Included in that is womens' and mens' roles to the oikos, and about the fact that she is morally required to take revenge for the deaths of her chilren (even more so than a normal wife, because she is the Goddess Nemesis and a Fury), but at the same time she's committing the same sin because it was her husband who murdered Iphigenia... Yay for Greek plays where everyone's stuck between rocks and hard places!
Anyways, Theatre History is a fun class. :D Yay for fun classes!