Inherited Guilt
Inherited Guilt
This chapter pursues a line of enquiry suggested by the consideration of Herodotus in Chapter 1. It asks whether those unfortunate descendants in tragedy who are punished for the sins of their fathers are presented as innocent in and of themselves. It also considers the functioning of inherited guilt, its place and its workings within the architecture and the emotional and conceptual dynamics of the plays in which it appears. It argues that the study of inherited guilt must take account of the intimate and indissoluble connection between the dramatic and emotional aspect of tragedy and its conceptual burden in order to do justice to the richness and complexity of these texts. The tragedians do not examine inherited guilt aridly or in a vacuum: they weave it into the structure of their plays, introducing it at crucial moments and making it a central part of the emotional dynamics of the texts.
Keywords: Greek tragedy, Herodotus, inherited guilt, descendants, plays, Agamemnon, emotional dynamics
Oxford Scholarship Online requires a subscription or purchase to access the full text of books within the service. Public users can however freely search the site and view the abstracts and keywords for each book and chapter.
Please, subscribe or login to access full text content.
If you think you should have access to this title, please contact your librarian.
To troubleshoot, please check our FAQs , and if you can't find the answer there, please contact us .
