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9-07-2015, 06:22

Echoes of the story

In ancient Greece the earliest paintings of Electra, from the the fifth century BCE, were of her presence at the killing of Aegisthus. Later in Greek art she was featured more often with Orestes at the tomb of their father.

The most important literary depictions of Electra come in the works of three Greek dramatists, Aeschylus, Sophocles (c. 496-406 BCE), and Euripides (c. 486-406 BCE). In Aeschylus’s version of her story, Electra has little to do with the murders of Clytemnestra and Aegisthus; yet in the versions by Sophocles and Euripides, both of which are titled Electra, she takes a more central and instrumental role. Sophocles’ play puts greater emphasis on Electra’s emotional torment during the years spent waiting for the return of Orestes and the agony she feels when she hears the false rumor that her brother is dead. Sophocles’ Electra also encourages Orestes to stab their mother a second time. A major difference between the Sophocles and Euripides Electras is that in the latter play Electra grips the knife with Orestes and the two stab their mother together.

In the 20th century, Electra continued to inspire artists. Most famously, Electra is featured in a reworking of Oresteia by the U. S. dramatist Eugene O’Neill (1888-1953).The play, Mourning Becomes Electra, sets the drama among a New England family immediately following the Civil War. In 1908 the German composer Richard Strauss (1864-1949) wrote an opera based on Sophocles’ Electra. Poet Sylvia Plath (1932-1963), whose own father died when she was young, wrote “Electra on Azalea Path” about her feelings for him.

Anna Claybourne

Bibliography

Aeschylus, and A. Shapiro and P. Burian, eds. The Oresteia. New York: Oxford University Press, 2010.

Euripides, and P. Burian and A. Shapiro, eds. The Complete Euripides. New York: Oxford University Press, 2009-2010. O’Neill, Eugene. Three Plays: Desire under the Elms, Strange Interlude, Mourning Becomes Electra. New York:Vintage Books, 1995.

See also: Agamemnon; Atreus; Clytemnestra; Iphigeneia; Orestes.