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Shadows on the Son: Aeschylus, Genealogy, History

Rader, Richard Evan, Jr.

Abstract Details

2007, Doctor of Philosophy, Ohio State University, Greek and Latin.
This dissertation examines genealogy and history in Prometheus Bound, Seven against Thebes, and Persians. It asks how a character’s relation to his own family history affects his perspective on the past. I argue that in each play the conflict between a son and a father, say between Xerxes and Darius, is replicated at the level of a theory of history. Genealogy suggests two different relations between the past generations and the present, since it is both a reproduction of the same (the ideal son who takes after his father) and a production of difference (the son can never be identical to the father). These two genealogical relations correspond to two theories of history: what I identify as a retrospective view of history, which transfigures discrete historical events into teleology and inevitability, where history becomes the movement of necessity; and a prospective one, which sees historical events as only the trace of desire, hope, potential and human agency, where history becomes the movement of what could have been, the contingent unfolding of unlimited possibilities. My project combines recent historicizing approaches to tragedy and close attention to the literary qualities of the plays. Drawing on diverse theories of history, it poses historical and political questions but seeks to answer them through detailed philological analysis.
Anthony Kaldellis (Advisor)
211 p.

Recommended Citations

Citations

  • Rader, Jr., R. E. (2007). Shadows on the Son: Aeschylus, Genealogy, History [Doctoral dissertation, Ohio State University]. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu1189987057

    APA Style (7th edition)

  • Rader, Jr., Richard. Shadows on the Son: Aeschylus, Genealogy, History. 2007. Ohio State University, Doctoral dissertation. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center, http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu1189987057.

    MLA Style (8th edition)

  • Rader, Jr., Richard. "Shadows on the Son: Aeschylus, Genealogy, History." Doctoral dissertation, Ohio State University, 2007. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu1189987057

    Chicago Manual of Style (17th edition)