How far does the Agamemnon reflect the Perfect Tragedy?

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Amy Porter

How far does the Agamemnon reflect the Perfect Tragedy?

In this essay I shall explore the how far the Agamemnon reflects the Perfect Tragedy. This means that I shall look at the following factors that make the Perfect Tragedy: the plot, themes, outcomes and unity of time and place; character, diction, melody, spectacle and catharsis. I shall see how all these factors contribute to the ideas put forward from Aristotle and see how far these factors support or contradict his view. The Agamemnon may have some factors that prove it is a perfect Tragedy however, Aristotle thinks that a tragedy must hold all the factors in it’s stead.

The Plot in the Agamemnon is a simple plot, this is a plot that is not easy to follow and the audience find it hard to understand what is happening. Aristotle prefers a more complex plot, where the events that take place are a lot more believable to the audience and they understand how and why these events happened. It is also put forward that a simple plot involves a change of fortune but no peripeteia or anagnorisis.  Aristotle says that the plot is the most important factor for a perfect tragedy, this is more important that the influence of character, the plot is the “soul of a tragedy”. As the plot is not what is outlined by Aristotle it can be seen that a simple plot is not as good as a simple plot, and Agamemnon has a simple plot. In the play there is no unity to the time or place, it is supposed to take part in real time, and in the Agamemnon the Watchman sees the beacon many days before Agamemnon returns from Troy. The main idea that it must all take place at one time means that the Agamemnon is not fully a perfect tragedy. In the plot there is no real outcome to the play, Aeschylus’ work is fully shown in the trilogy, the Oresteia. This really does not show what Aristotle thinks of a Perfect Tragedy and the play is not in a full entity. The themes that are in the Agamemnon are also important in other plays written in other plays. The key point is that the Agamemnon and the other plays have to teach you a lesson, and this really puts forward that even though Aristotle says nothing about themes in his Ars Poetica the themes in each play are always similar. For example, Dike and justice from Zeus is always in a play because there must be justice in a play, something must come that is right.

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In respect to character, there are three main ones, Agamemnon, Clytemnestra and Cassandra. In brief, any of these characters could be tragic heroes, but they do not fit all of the things needed to be a tragic hero, Orestes is the tragic hero in the trilogy. Aristotle looks for five main things in a character, he looks for whether the character is “good”, has “propriety”, is “true to life”, they have “consistency” and whether they are “necessary or the probable”. Looking at the main characters only I shall briefly analyse the characters. Agamemnon speaks due to his importance as the ...

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