Musical Themes and Imagery in Aeschylus

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Abstract
Although imagery from music and song is not uncommon in Greek poetry as a whole, it is usually of no more than superficial significance. In Aeschylus, however, its roots strike deeper, and for that reason I have chosen to concentrate on him here. For the sake of comparison, a briefer survey of its uses in Sophocles and Euripides will be added.Aeschylus' method of using key images to sustain and develop a dramatic theme has for some time now been recognised as an important feature of his style. Whether he expected the subtleties of his technique to be appreciated by his audience—even by a perceptive minority—is another question. His painstaking craftsmanship would tend rather to suggest that he wrote with more in view than the immediate appeal of the spoken word, deliberately shaping his work as aκτῆμα ἐς αἰεί. A number of dominant images in his drama, such as the yoke in thePersae, the ship in theSeptemand the alternating light and dark in theOresteia, have already received their fair share of attention. But this has not been so with his musical symbolism which, although less apparent, is employed with greater consistency. In no drama is it entirely absent, and it permeates the substance of theSeptemand theOresteia.

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