Aeschylus´ Diegetic Drama

The earliest extant tragedies Persians, Seven against Thebes, Suppliants, but also Prometheus Bound tend to narrate events through messenger speeches, teichoskopiai, prophecies and so forth, rather than enacting them. This conflicts with our horizon of expectations concerning drama (Jauss), as we expect narrative to be marginal while action pivotal in drama. Indeed, judgments about the supposed immaturity of early tragedy have become standard in much classical scholarship, usually highlighting narrativity and eventless plots. However, our horizon of expectations of drama is built upon later tragedy, in which action prevails over narrative. As such we may well be judging Aeschylus anachronistically, through the lens of later genre theory. The goal of Aeschylus Diegetic Drama is to overcome this approach and to focus on what the dramatic texts actually show, narrative, rather than on what we miss, action. Accordingly, I propose to understand narrativity not as a by-product or a deficit, but as a typical feature of early tragedy, which I redefine as the narrative genre termed diegetic drama. This shift of perspective is not for the sake of genre taxonomy, but allows for unbiased, fresh, and non- judgemental understanding of those elements that, in Aeschylus, strike us as eminently non- dramatic: that is long narratives and choral responses to them. By means of textual analysis, this study will identify the distinguishing marks of diegetic drama: this is not only the strong presence of narrative, but also the role narratives play, their interactions with non-narrative elements, and their impact on the plot. Indeed, what is peculiar about the narratives of diegetic drama is that they elicit reactions and responses from the dramatis personae: for example, the messenger speeches in Seven elicit Eteocless reactions, as he carries out the war strategy, and the chorus response, in the dirge over the fallen brothers. By calling for such events, narratives actively contribute to shaping the tragic plot. At the same time, they encourage the construction of what Aristotle classifies as non- unitary plots: for narratives represent events that, happening at times and places different from the hic et nunc, might well be causally non-related. Moreover, this project seeks to understand why Aeschylus uses narrative to such a degree, and the reasons his audience judged him an outstanding tragedian for doing so. Diegetic drama will be contextualised into its own background: in Greek narrative culture, storytelling is essential to most poetic genres and develops into a manifold performance art. Under these premises, Aeschylus Diegetic Drama explores the performance and staging of tragic narratives, the ties between dramatic and narrative genres, and finally the ways in which diegetic drama transfers a complex narrative tradition onto the stage.

What did Aeschylus and his original audience regard as a good tragedy, and what distinguishes tragedies of the 470s and 460s BC from later ones? My project shows how key characteristics of Aeschylus' drama ultimately depend on his use of narratives. It rethinks Aeschylean texts as the literary remains of a performance art that hybridized robust traditions of storytelling (expressed through different musicopoetic forms) with elements of theatrical impersonation - an art that essentially relied on the stage performance of narratives and responses to narratives.