Skip to main content

If I Have to Repeat Repeat Myself One More Time - Caroline Tucker

 If I’m being completely honest, I always have a hard time writing a blog post about a play. This play is no different. I do not really understand why it is so hard but it always is.

From a literary standpoint, it was very interesting how often the Furies would repeat an entire paragraph twice. At one point the Furies repeat three different paragraph in one go. (Aeschylus, 245-247). While the Furies repeating themselves could be tiring, I think that it is very intriguing why they are repeating. I do not know the correct reason that the Furies repeat themselves. However, I have a few ideas as to why. 

The first reason that the Furies could have been repeating themselves is because it is some kind of chanting ritual or just a ritual in general. There could be some hidden meaning behind repeating themselves. The furies can be seen chanting or speaking as one through out the entire play. 

Another reason could be that Aeschylus wanted the audience to completely understand what the Furies were saying. When the Furies said something important or something that needed to stand out, Aeschylus would have the Furies repeat it. On the other hand, the reoccurrence of a passage could have been for the characters inside the play instead of for the audience. The passage could have been so important that the Furies wanted the other characters in the play to understand. That could have been why they repeated themselves.

What do you think? What was the reason Aeschylus had the Furies repeat themselves? Can you think of another reason why Aeschylus would do that?


P.s. I commented on Hailey Morgan’s and Isabelle’s posts.

Comments

  1. Jessef LeslieSeptember 21, 2020 at 10:57 PM

    I noticed it as well and you are spot on. The Furies repeat themselves for the meaning in what they say and for the audience to hear it clearer. Another reason you may have glanced over is to make the actor's life easier. Homer did the same thing in the Iliad with sacrifices and many other metaphors so the actor can site the same few monologues 3 times rather than learn 28 different blocks of texts along with his dialogues.

    ReplyDelete
  2. kaitlyn terrySeptember 21, 2020 at 10:57 PM

    I was always taught that if you heard something repeated, it was important and you ought to take note of it. I think that stands true here! I think Aeschylus is trying to bring special attention to those passages for the audience. I think there had to have been a message he was trying to get across through the repetition, otherwise it seems futile.

    ReplyDelete
  3. abbieheddenSeptember 22, 2020 at 9:23 AM

    I know that in Scripture, many passages are repeated due to their importance. When the Furies repeated themselves, I think that they were emphasizing how important their message was, and just being the chaotic force that the Furies are. It kind of reminds me of the end of Honors classes, when everyone is saying "What's the blog post? What's the blog post?" If they would just listen, the mass force of everyone saying the same thing wouldn't be as chaotic.

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Word Painting in Vesta—Lily Caswell

  Word painting in Weelkes’s As Vesta Was from Latmos Hill Descending is quite interesting. And because that is a really long title, I’m calling it Vesta from now on. Word painting is basically when the melody matches up with the lyrics. So in Vesta, when it says “ascending” and “descending”, there are obviously scales going up and down. The madrigal was written for six voices to sing unaccompanied, so when they start to come together, it matches with the lyrics; so if the lyric says “two by two”, there are only two voices; “three by three” there is another voice added, and so forth. All the parts combine in exclamation before Vesta before it is left “all alone” to the highest soprano. All the way to the end of the piece, word painting continues when shouts of “Long live fair Oriana” with the bass sustaining long notes. Word painting in and of itself is a highly interesting topic because a musician takes the words of a poem or a sonnet and writes a melody line that pertains to cer...
4 comments
Read more

Honor and Gain; Which Do You Seek?

 Pericles.... thanks? I can only imagine that's what the family and friends were thinking after they heard his historic funeral speech honoring the departed. What do I mean? Well, Pericles briefly mentions the men who have fallen at the beginning of his speech, but then goes on to discuss how great Athens is, and how the contributions the city has made to the world are unmatched.. why? I understand that he is also commending the citizens of Athens and empowering them to continue to make their city greater, but I thought this was supposed to be a funeral speech about dead war heroes, not about Athens. Another thing I found interesting is what Pericles said on page five about honor: "For it is only the love of honour that never grows old; and honour it is, not gain, as some would have it, that rejoices the heart of age and helplessness" (Thucydides, page 5). Have you ever watched a show or movie, or read a book, about a duel between two men? There is always an unspoken agre...
Post a Comment
Read more

Aristotle Might Not Like Me...Or Jesus//Haylee Lynd

      Aristotle says that the man who does not get angry at the things he should be angry at "is thought unlikely to defend himself; and to endure being insulted and put up with insult to one's friends is slavish" (Aristotle 41). While he states that passivity is preferred to excessive anger, he still gives great criticism to it.  In contrast to Aristotle, the man who Christians believe to be the most just is Jesus who states in Matthew 5:39-40, "...do not resist an evil person. If anyone slaps you on the right cheek, turn to them the other also. And if anyone wants to sue you and take your shirt, hand over your coat as well." Essentially, arguing that one is not to respond in anger when insulted or hurt, to not defend one's self. Most individual's are unable to achieve this. Our natural instinct is to defend ourselves, especially in physical cases. However, Christians strive to be like Jesus in this way. I would also argue that it is a very admirable wa...
2 comments
Read more