Aeschylus' Oresteia is undoubtedly one of the greatest surviving tragedies of antiquity. Driven by the universal struggles of justice versus injustice, fear versus obligation, and parent versus child, the show follows a hapless family through passion, hatred, and destruction that, through extreme pain and suffering, ultimately eliminate the lineage and restore honor to their children. name. A prelude to generations of domestic murder, adultery, and brutality, the Oresteia shows the purification and redemption of the house of Arteus. The show takes place directly after the Trojan War. Helen was kidnapped, Menelaus enraged, Iphigenia sacrificed, a war was waged and Troy massacred. The first play in the series, Agamemnon, opens with a lone sentry surveying the Greek countryside, pining for the loss of his king and Queen Clytemnestra's rise to absolute power. In her husband's absence, she had taken Argos into her embittered, power-hungry hands, undermining her authority and driving her citizens to hate her and fear the future. The sentry sees a lighthouse in the distance, the sign that the Greeks have triumphed, and rejoices at the thought of his master's return to his homeland. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get an original essayThis short but exciting prologue immediately establishes the period, setting, and emotional openings of the tragedy. In a few short lines the sentry conveys the anxieties and fears of an entire city. It immediately shows the love that the people have for Agamemnon and the contempt they feel towards Clytemnestra who usurped her husband and razed the city of Argos to the ground with her tyranny and hatred. The prologue quickly continues into the great parados: the choral entrance. The audience is now overwhelmed by the beauty and spectacle of the swirling, dancing choir serenading them with over two hundred lines of lyrical verse. The dazzling spectacle draws the audience into the action of the opera with a highly effective but now completely lost convention that, while conveying the entire story of the opera in the context of exquisite, poetic singing and intricate dancing, provides a complicated commentary social on the work. the characters of the work and the theological principles of the time. Fredrich Schiller discusses the importance of choral segments of Greek tragedy such as the parades of the Oresteia in "On the Use of the Chorus in Tragedy". He states that because the Chorus is a body within but above the dramatic action, “not an individual but a general conception,” (474) it has the ability to step outside the plot to make a specific comment on the society represented. “He abandons the contracted sphere of events,” he explains, “to expand on the past and the future, on times and distant nations and on humanity in general, to deduce the great achievements of life and pronounce lessons of wisdom” (474). ). By introducing the lyricism of the chorus, the playwright increases the poetry of the work and makes the action more credible. As Schiller describes it, "with a bold lyrical freedom which ascends, as with a divine step, to the summit of worldly things; and does so in conjunction with all the sensible influence of melody and rhythm, in tones and movements" (474) . The chorus transcends the plot and takes the audience out of the emotions of the show. As they are drawn into a precise and poetic language, they become aware of the theatricalities they witness and therefore more open to the underlined social reflection. “It is by separating the different parts and interacting the passions with its compositional visions, that the Chorus gives us back our freedom, which would otherwise be lost in the storm” (474). Fredrich Nietzsche describes the Chorus in a slightly different waydifferent. It looks more specifically at the historical roots of the Choir and thus determines its notability. He sees Greek tragedy as a marriage between the gods Apollo and Dionysus; the chorus as remnants of Dionysian hedonism and the episodes, language and themes as embodiments of Apollonian sensibility. With its rigid structure and specific attributes, but with freedom of beauty and artistic expression "tragedy is the Apollonian embodiment of Dionysian insights and forces" (823). This especially concerns Agamemnon since the typically Dionysian chorus represents the old men or Argus abandoned during the war. What was once the embodiment of freedom and pleasure, is in the case of the first work of the Oresteia the epitome of Apollonian sense and linear logic. Although they still perform the same songs and dances as the Epicurean choirs of the past, this group of helpless old men displays extreme sadness and sociopolitical sensitivity. Like Schiller, Nietzsche sees the chorus as a vehicle for elevating the entire drama. Through its language and performance, the Chorus not only gives weight to the action, but serves to enhance the actors and characters. As Nietzsche explains, "it then became the task of the dithyrambic chorus to arouse the mood of the listeners so that when the tragic hero appeared they would not see the awkwardly masked man, but a figure born of their own rapt vision" (824) . In contrast to Schiller, however, Nietzsche sees the Chorus as an introduction to the opera by drawing the audience into its world through spectacle and language, while Schiller sees them as means to opposite ends. In the case of the introduction of Agamemnon's Chorus, the large section raises the level of play as it is more in-depth than the average expository passage. Within the finely crafted language and poeticism lies commentary on the play's characters and society as a whole. The choir's speech is predominantly an exposition that tells the story that led to the play's rise to Clytemnestra's power and Agamemnon's success. However, their opinion on the topics they are discussing is incorporated into their narrative. In describing Clytemnestra, Agamemnon, and their entangled pasts and situations, the Chorus gives a subjective view of history and presents a romantic view of monarchs that resonates with Neitzsche's later argument. Although the Chorus despises Clytemnestra and her power in the kingdom, they are equally critical of Agamemnon and his escapades in Troy. They clearly disapprove of the war, calling it a "one woman's quarrel with many men" (36). They see Elena as a common prostitute and pine for those who lost their lives in such a pointless and empty struggle. This can be seen specifically in the use of animal imagery throughout the speech. The passage begins by referring to the brothers as eagles, crying out "in the solitary agony of their nestlings and in all the watchful care they had devoted to guarding them" (36). This refers to Menelaus' loss of his wife, but the phrase is ironic when viewed from Agamemnon's point of view. In his case, he had to sacrifice his beloved daughter, his "nest," "like a kid" (41), to recover Elena for his brother. The Chorus acknowledges this, saying as they describe Iphigenia's sacrifice, "so [Agamemnon] dared to become his daughter's sacrificer to help the war waged for a woman – early rites of deliverance for ships" (41). The metaphor of the eagle and the Chorus' sympathy carries over into their description of the omen coordinated by the army prophet. Here they describe the sacrifice of a pregnant rabbit to a pair of birds of prey "one black eagle, the other white-tailed... near the palace where all could see them feeding on the pregnant womb of hares, mother and all" . , shot down, 1974. 359-363