Welcome back to The Invisible College, my series of literature courses for paid subscribers. The introduction to and schedule for the 2025 season is here. The 2024 archive is here. This episode, of which the first 10 minutes is free, concerns Aeschylus’s tragic trilogy, The Oresteia. I discuss the limited state of our knowledge about Athenian drama and the philosophical impediments to that knowledge; questions of translation; the mythical life of Aeschylus; and the trilogy itself, a progressive dialectical narrative, half horror movie, half courtroom drama, about the regime change from impersonal youth-oriented masculine sky-god civilization from familial gerontocratic feminine earth-goddess tradition, a development I characterize as at one and the same time the nadir of misogyny and the apotheosis of feminism. Please like, share, and comment! The slideshow corresponding to the episode can be downloaded behind the paywall:
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