Male tragic lament
Aeschylus’ Persians
Keywords:
Greek tragedy, Aeschylus, Persians, tragic lament, ritual lamentAbstract
My focus in this article is the lament songs represented in the Aeschylus tragedy Persians. I reassess Hall’s position (1989, 1995, 1996) to address gender issues potentially present in the final lament of the play, which is quite intense. Hall’s critic suggests effeminacy, almost hysteria, in the performance of the chorus and Xerxes. I bring in the criticism of Suter (2008), whose arguments seem convincing for reviewing usual interpretations of male laments in Athenian tragedies. The terms for identifying the laments are those provided in Wright’s thesis (1986). I consider the cultural and literary contexts of Persians, in a historical-comparative perspective, testing the possibility raised by Suter that a generic reading of the form of the lament combined with a gendered reading of its function can contribute to a better understanding of the scenes of lamentation. At the end, I propose my hypothesis for the function of the final lament in the play.
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