Aeschylus And Athens

Aeschylus and Athens is far more than a study of the plays of Aeschylus and what they meant to the audience for whom they were written. It is a profound inquiry into the origins and development of Athenian democracy, and as such an inquiry into the roots of western civilisation and culture. For Professor Thomson's contention is that the plays of Aeschylus contain fundamental problems which could never be solved within the accepted limits of either conventional literary criticism or conventional classical scholarship. The Aeschylean drama is so inseparable from the social and political life of Athens that it can only be understood by studying it methodically in its full historical context. Therefore, while the primary object of this book is a better understanding of Aeschylus, it covers a much wider field, including the history of early Greek poetry, the growth of the vital elements in Greek thought, the religious basis of Greek drama, and the relation of all these cultural developements to the transition from primitive tribal society to the Greek city-state. First published in 1941, this was the first attempt to apply to ancient Greek civilisation the principles of historical materialism. Professor Thomson has since continued this work in the two volumes of his Studies in Ancient Greek Society. The new edition of Aeschylus and Athens has been revised throughout by the author. --jacket.