Metaphor and Cosmology in Aeschylus’ Oresteia - The case for air, winds and breaths

Immagine: Purification of Orestes at Delphi inspired by Aeschylus’ tragedy “Eumenides”, Egisto Sani - CC BY-NC 2.0 DEED | by flickr

Emmanuela Bakola - University of Warwick
Metaphor and Cosmology in Aeschylus’ Oresteia
The case for air, winds and breaths

This lecture by Prof. Emmanuela Bakola (University of Warwick) is part of a series of Seminars organised by the Department of Philology, Literature and Linguistics of the University of Pisa and by the Scuola Normale Superiore. The seminars are named after Vincenzo Di Benedetto, a long-time professor of Greek Literature at both institutions.

This paper brings the Oresteia’s imagery of air, winds and breaths to the forefront of the trilogy’s interpretation. It uses this imagery as case study to argue that all spheres of the Aeschylean cosmos – the material world of nature, the world of the divine, human communities and human interiors like the body and the mind – are interconnected and stand in a homologous relationship with one another. Ate, envisioned as a stormy wind that blows across these spheres, can be at the same time engendered in nature, in the divine, in the community, and in the human mind.

Organizzazione

• Luigi Battezzato - Scuola Normale Superiore
• Enrico Medda - Università di Pisa
• Mauro Tulli - Università di Pisa