Talk:The Suppliants (Aeschylus)

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Added some stuff on the trilogy to which the play belongs. Also, changed Danaides to Danaids, which is just about universally used in written English in the twentieth century and beyond.Ifnkovhg (talk) 04:53, 28 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

There's some problems with the first part of the entry here. It says, "evidence discovered in the mid-twentieth century shows it one of Aeschylus' last plays, definitely written after The Persians and possibly after Seven Against Thebes[citation needed]." A leading scholar of Greek tragedy, H. D. F. Kitto, in his book Greek Tragedy, 3rd edition (1961) page 2, considers the available evidence including the newly discovered papyrus fragment made available in 1952. He points out that the authority of the papyrus fragment is very questionable, and there is still substantial evidence for the play's early date. As the article notes, there is no citation for the claim that the play was written and produced after The Persians and Seven Against Thebes. The article should not state the later date as definitive.

The quotation from Paley, dated 1879, is also very problematic: "It may be remarked, though not as an evidence of date, that the play is rather a melodrama than a tragedy. It ends happily, and has no other claim to the latter title than from the pathos excited and sustained by the helpless condition of the fugitive maidens in a foreign land."

Melodrama, in this context, is a form of tragedy that ends with the death of the "bad guys." It can be said to have a "happy ending," but that is not the primary defining feature. Melodrama is sensationalistic, appealing to the audience's baser instincts for revenge. The Suppliants most definitively cannot be considered a "melodrama." Furthermore, The Suppliants is part of a trilogy, so the ending cannot be considered in isolation. The tragic dilemma of the play is that the protagonist is faced with choice between offending Zeus and offending the Egyptians and entering a war. Although we don't have the remaining parts of the trilogy, in most versions of the myth, the choice to protect the suppliants does in fact result in war and many deaths, including the murder of the prospective husbands. So in fact, The Suppliants is part of a tragedy resulting in many deaths (and not just "bad guys"), and it certainly cannot be regarded as a melodrama with a happy ending. In my view, the given quotation should be eliminated and a more accurate assessment of the play should be added. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Leghorn (talk • contribs) 16:12, 31 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]