Quick questions on Greek tragedy: Aeschylus, Sophocles, Euripides: HSC Drama elective

Aeschylus, Sophocles and Euripides are the three Athenian tragedians whose plays survive in any number. The festival competitions of the fifth century BCE involved many other tragedians (Choerilus, Phrynichus, Pratinas, Ion of Chios, Agathon and others), but their work is lost except for fragments.

The oldest of the three. Fought at the Battle of Marathon (490 BCE) against the Persians; the experience shaped his sense of Athenian civic identity.

The middle figure of the three. Lived through the high period of Athenian democracy and into the Peloponnesian War. Won the City Dionysia eighteen times.

The youngest of the three. Less successful in his lifetime (won the City Dionysia only four times in his lifetime, plus a posthumous fifth), more popular in later antiquity.

Fate and free will. Greek tragedy repeatedly stages the conflict between what is fated and what characters choose. Oedipus's failure to escape the prophecy is the canonical example.

Greek tragedy continues to be produced regularly. Contemporary Australian productions of note include:

If Greek theatre is your prescribed elective, you will probably study at least one play by Sophocles (typically Oedipus or Antigone) and one by Euripides (typically Medea). Strong essays place the play in the context of fifth-century BCE Athens and use specific scenes to analyse the tragedian's distinctive contribution.

Added the second actor, enabling dialogue between characters. Earlier tragedy had been chorus plus one actor. The two-actor innovation transformed Greek drama into a dialogue form.

The Persians (472 BCE, the earliest surviving play); Seven Against Thebes (467 BCE); The Suppliants (around 463 BCE); The Oresteia trilogy (Agamemnon, The Libation Bearers, The Eumenides, 458 BCE); Prometheus Bound (the attribution is disputed; possibly post-Aeschylean).

A trilogy that follows the curse on the house of Atreus across three plays. Agamemnon returns from Troy and is murdered by his wife Clytemnestra. Their son Orestes avenges Agamemnon by killing Clytemnestra.

Grand, archaic, with extensive choral material. The chorus is dramatically central. The language is dense with metaphor and ritual cadence.

Oedipus, king of Thebes, learns over the course of one day that he is the murderer of King Laius (and his own father), and the husband of Queen Jocasta (his mother). The play observes a tight unity of time and place. The dramatic irony is sustained from the opening: the audience knows what Oedipus will discover.

After the death of her brothers Eteocles and Polynices on opposite sides of a civil war, Antigone defies King Creon's edict and buries Polynices. Creon orders her execution. Antigone hangs herself; Creon's son Haemon (her fiance) kills himself; Creon's wife Eurydice kills herself.

Medea, abandoned by Jason for the king's daughter, takes revenge by murdering her own children and the new bride. The play gives Medea sustained psychological argument with herself about whether to commit the murder. The chorus of Corinthian women is largely sympathetic, which complicates the audience's moral position.

After the sack of Troy, the Trojan women (Hecuba, Cassandra, Andromache, Helen) wait to be parcelled out as slaves. The play stages the price paid by the defeated. Performed in 415 BCE shortly after the Athenian massacre at Melos, the play has often been read as a critique of Athenian imperialism.