Talk:The Persians

Latest comment: 2 years ago by Tjobrien.seoul in topic Unconvincing “Influence”

Comments edit

> the only other ghost known to appear on stage is the ghost of Clytemnestra in Aeschylus' The Eumenides

The ghost of Polydorus appears in 'Hecuba' by Euripides.

Does one know where the origin of the lyrics Sheena Easton sang back in 1981 stem from? "The Persians said: Collide in me, while the band's insidin' me"


Made some corrections, added some references. edit

I cleaned up the intro a bit, and added sources. The play is the oldest in Western literature. In India they were producing dramas when Aeschylus' ancestors still lived in caves. The summary and discussion sections need work, too -- there is some glaring POV (and/or incorrect) stuff in there. According to Herodotus, Phryn. Miletou Persis did not mock Persia. Furthermore, there is a prominent strain of scholarship that suggests reading the Persae as a typical Aristotelian tragedy that evokes pity or sympathy is a mistake. This should be addressed. Ifnkovhg 01:03, 1 December 2007 (UTC)Reply

I went back and tweaked the summary and discussion sections, too. Ifnkovhg 07:46, 3 December 2007 (UTC)Reply

As far as I know, Indian drama is actually later than Greek drama; according to some scholars it might have even been influenced by it(Reich, Der Mimus, 1903; Pisani, Le Letterature dell'India, 1970, pp. 93; not to mention http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sanskrit_drama ...). I don't think that there are any examples of plays (Western or not)as we intend them preceding the Greek ones. There are some sorts of religious dramas from the Ancient Near East and Egypt, but I don't know whether they may be considered "theater". Before editing the page, however, I'll wait some time, in case anybody could prove me wrong :D —Preceding unsigned comment added by 163.1.221.250 (talk) 02:02, 31 January 2008 (UTC)Reply

Unconvincing “Influence” edit

The attempt to relate the quote from The Persians to Elliot’s line in The Waste Land is unconvincing, to say the least, and unsourced. It is even more problematic when compared with the quote from Dante, which is clearly echoed by Eliot.

So much work went into the seemingly faulty comparison that I hesitate to delete it.

T. S. Eliot, in The Waste Land, "The Burial of the Dead", line 63 "I had not thought Death had undone so many" echoes line 432 of the Messenger account in the Persians: "However, you can be sure that so great a multitude of men never perished in a single day",[24] which is also similar to Dante's line in Inferno, Canto III, lines 56–57: ch'i' non averei creduto/Che morte tanta n'avesse disfatta.[25] Tjobrien.seoul (talk) 11:54, 25 February 2022 (UTC)Reply