Que devient la malédiction des Atrides dans Iphigénie en Tauride ? Ou d'Aulis à Brauron en passant par la Tauri

Iphigenia in Tauris enables us to examine the original way in which Euripides uses the myth of the Atreids and the history of the family curse to develop philosophical and religious ideas. In this play he rewrites the fate of the two last surviving offspring of this family, Orestes and Iphigenia. Why does the poet reject Aeschylus’ solution, which was to have the Areopagus offer Orestes amnesty for committing matricide? As for Iphigenia, why did the goddess saved her so that she could preside over human sacrifices which disgust her? The heroine’s line of argument in ll. 380-391 is central to an understanding of the play. Euripides’ original plot is built upon the curse: will the two young people succeed in escaping from the Taurian land? Within this limited framework, do they have any freedom of choice? Although the curse comes to an end at the conclusion of the play, as in Aeschylus’ Eumenides, the two poets adopt very different solutions. This is the difference that we intend to assess

Diction · Humanities · Linguistics · Poetry · Classical Antiquity Studies · Hermeneutics and Narrative Identity · Historical and Literary Studies · Philosophy

• Pelopid History and the Plot of Iphigenia in Tauris

  Open Access•M J O''Brien, Michael J O’brien•The Classical Quarterly•1988

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