Electra

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Electra

In Greek mythology

Greek mythology

Greek mythology is the body of myths and legends belonging to the Ancient Greece concerning their List of Greek mythological figures#Immortals and Greek hero cult, Cosmology#Metaphysical cosmology, and the origins and significance of their own cult and ritual practices....
, Electra was an Argos

Argos

Argos is a city in Greece in the Peloponnese near Nafplion, which was its historic harbour, named for Nauplius ....
ian princess and daughter of King Agamemnon

Agamemnon

In Greek mythology, Agamemnon / is the son of King Atreus of Mycenae and Queen Aerope, the brother of Menelaus and the husband of Clytemnestra; different mythological versions make him the king either of Mycenae or of Argos....
and Queen Clytemnestra

Clytemnestra

Clytemnestra was the wife of Agamemnon, king of the Ancient Greece kingdom of Mycenae or Argos. In the Oresteia by Aeschylus, she was a femme fatale who murdered her husband, Agamemnon—said by Euripides to be her second husband—and his concubine Cassandra....
, and was a sibling to sisters Iphigeneia

Iphigeneia

Chrysothemis

In Greek mythology, Chrysothemis was a daughter of Agamemnon and Clytemnestra. Unlike her sister, Electra, Chrysothemis did not protest or enact vengeance against their mother for having an affair with Aegisthus and then killing their father....
, and brother Orestes

Orestes

Orestes was the son of Agamemnon in Greek mythology; Orestes may also refer to:Drama*Orestes , an Classical Athens tragedy from 408 BCE by Euripides...
.

She is the main character in the Greek tragedies

Tragedy

Tragedy is a form of The arts based on human suffering that offers its audience pleasure. While most cultures have developed forms that provoke this paradoxical response, tragedy refers to a specific Poetic tradition of drama that has played a unique and important role historically in the self-definition of Western culture....
Electra
Electra (Sophocles)

Electra or Elektra is a Ancient Greece tragedy Play by Sophocles. Its date is not known, but various stylistic similarities with the Philoctetes and the Oedipus at Colonus lead scholars to suppose that it was written towards the end of Sophocles' career....
by Sophocles

Sophocles

Sophocles was the second of the three classical Greece tragedy whose work has survived. His first plays were written later than those of Aeschylus and earlier than those of Euripides....
and Electra
Electra (Euripides)

Euripides' Electra was probably written in the mid 410s BC, likely after 413 BC. It is unclear whether it was first produced before or after Sophocles' Electra of the Electra story....
by Euripides

Euripides

Euripides was the last of the three great tragedy of classical Athens . Ancient scholars thought that Euripides had written ninety-five plays, although four of those were probably written by Critias....
and has inspired various other works.

The psychological concept of the Electra complex

Electra complex

The Electra complex is the psychoanalysis theory that a female's psycho-sexual development involves a sexual attachment to her father, and is analogous to a boy's attachment to his mother that forms the basis of the Oedipus complex....
is named after her.

Overview
The Murder of Agamemnon
Electra was absent from Mycenae

Mycenae

Mycenae , is an archaeology in Greece, located about 90 km south-west of Athens, in the north-eastern Peloponnese. Argos is 6 km to the south; Corinth, 48 km to the north....
when her father, King Agamemnon, returned from the Trojan War

Trojan War

In Greek mythology, the Trojan War was waged against the city of Troy by the Achaeans after Paris of Troy stole Helen from her husband Menelaus, the king of Sparta....
to be murdered by Aegisthus

Aegisthus

In Greek mythology, Aegisthus was the son of Thyestes and of his daughter, Pelopia.Thyestes felt he had been deprived of the Mycenae throne unfairly by his brother, Atreus....
, Clytemnestra's lover, and/or by Clytemnestra herself.

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Encyclopedia

In Greek mythology

Greek mythology

Argos

Argos is a city in Greece in the Peloponnese near Nafplion, which was its historic harbour, named for Nauplius ....
ian princess and daughter of King Agamemnon

Agamemnon

Clytemnestra

Iphigeneia

Chrysothemis

Orestes

Tragedy

Sophocles

Euripides

Electra complex

Overview

The Murder of Agamemnon

Electra was absent from Mycenae

Mycenae

Trojan War

In Greek mythology, the Trojan War was waged against the city of Troy by the Achaeans after Paris of Troy stole Helen from her husband Menelaus, the king of Sparta....
to be murdered by Aegisthus

Aegisthus

Cassandra

In Greek mythology, Cassandra was the daughter of King Priam and Queen Hecuba of Troy. Her beauty caused Apollo to grant her the gift of prophecy....
, Agamemnon's war prize, a prophet priestess of Troy. Eight years later Electra was brought from Athens

Athens

Athens , the Capital and largest city of Greece, dominates the Attica periphery; as one of the List of cities by time of continuous habitation, its recorded history spans around 3,400 years....
with her brother, Orestes

Orestes (mythology)

In Greek mythology, Orestes was the son of Clytemnestra and Agamemnon. He is the subject of several Ancient Greek theatre and of various legends connected with his madness and purification....
. (Odyssey
Odyssey

The Odyssey is one of two major ancient Hellenic civilization epic poetrys attributed to Homer. It is, in part, a sequel to the Iliad, the other work traditionally ascribed to Homer....
, iii. 306; X. 542).

According to Pindar

Pindar

Pindar , was an Ancient Greek Lyric poetry poet.Of the canonical nine lyric poets of ancient Greece, Pindar is the one whose work is by far the best preserved, and critics in antiquity tended to regard him as the greatest....
(Pythia, xi. 25), Orestes was saved by his old nurse or by Electra, and was taken to Phanote on Mount Parnassus

Mount Parnassus

Mount Parnassus is a mountain of barren limestone in central Greece that towers above Delphi, north of the Gulf of Corinth, and offers scenic views of the surrounding olive groves and countryside....
, where King Strophius

Strophius

In Greek mythology, Strophius was a King of Phocis and father of Pylades. When Orestes was hiding from his murderous mother, Clytemnestra, Strophius hid him. During this time, Orestes and Pylades became great friends....
took charge of him. In his twentieth year, Orestes was ordered by the Delphi

Delphi

Oracle

An oracle is a person or agency considered to be a source of wise counsel or prophecy opinion; an infallible authority, usually Spirituality in nature....
to return home and avenge his father's death.

The Murder of Clytemnestra

According to Aeschylus

Aeschylus

Aeschylus was an Ancient Greece playwright. He is often recognized as the father or the founder of tragedy, and is the earliest of the three Greek tragedy whose Play survive extant, the others being Sophocles and Euripides....
, Orestes met her face before the tomb of Agamemnon, where both had gone to perform rites to the dead; a recognition took place, and they arranged how Orestes should accomplish his revenge. Pylades

Pylades

In Greek mythology, Pylades is the son of King Strophius of Phocis and is mostly known for his strong friendship or homosexual relationship with Orestes ....
and Orestes killed Clytemnestra and Aegisthus (in some accounts with Electra helping).

Before her death, Clytemnestra curses Orestes and the furies come to torment him. He was pursued by the Erinyes

Erinyes

In Greek mythology the Erinyes or Eumenides or Furies in Roman mythology were female, chthonic deities of revenge or supernatural personifications of the anger of the dead....
, or Furies, whose duty it is to punish any violation of the ties of family piety. Electra, however, was not hounded by the Erinyes. Orestes took refuge in the temple at Delphi

Delphi

Delphi is an archaeology site and a modern town in Greece on the south-western spur of Mount Parnassus in the valley of Phocis. Delphi was the site of the Pythia, the most important oracle in the classical Greek world, when it was a major site for the worship of the god Apollo after he slew the Python , a deity who lived there and protecte...
. When he went to the temple it is said a priestess found him first, covered in blood and with the furies flying all around him (Orestes). After, they washed him with pigs blood to purify him. Once purified he traveled to Athens to seek Athena.

At last Athena

Athena

In Greek mythology, Athena is the shrewd companion of Hero and the goddess of Hero endeavour. She is the virgin patron of Athens, which built the Parthenon to worship her....
(also known as Areia) received him on the Acropolis of Athens and arranged a formal trial of the case before twelve Attic judges. The Erinyes demanded their victim; he pleaded the orders of Apollo; the votes of the judges were equally divided, and Athena gave her casting vote for acquittal.

In Iphigeneia in Tauris
Iphigeneia in Tauris

Iphigeneia in Tauris is a drama by the playwright Euripides, written sometime between 414 BC and 412 BC. It has much in common with another of Euripides's plays, Helen , and is often described as a romance , a melodrama or an escape play....
, Euripides tells the tale somewhat differently. He claims that Orestes was led by the Furies to Tauris on the Black Sea, where his sister Iphigeneia

Iphigeneia

Iphigenia is a daughter of Agamemnon and Clytemnestra in Greek mythology. In Attic accounts, Iphigenia is sometimes called a daughter of Theseus and Helen raised by Agamemnon and Clytemnestra....
was being held. The two met when Orestes and Pylades were brought to Iphigeneia to be prepared for sacrifice to Artemis

Artemis

In Greek mythology, Artemis was the daughter of Zeus and Leto, and the twin sister of Apollo. She was the Hellenic goddess of forests and hills, child birth/virginity/fertility, the hunt and was often depicted as a huntress carrying a bow and arrows.....
. Iphigeneia, Orestes, and Pylades escaped from Tauris. The Furies appeased by the reunion of the family, abated their persecution.

Marriage

Later, Pylades and Electra fell in love and married. Pylades was the son of King Strophius (who had cared for Orestes while he hid from his mother and her lover), and had helped Orestes and Electra kill Clytemnestra and Aegisthus.

According to Euripides, Clytemnestra and Aegisthus had previously given Electra in marriage to a peasant, believing that her children would be less likely to take revenge if they were not of noble birth, but the peasant respected her and declined to consummate the marriage.

Electra and Orestes Project Gutenberg Etext 14994

Adaptations of the Electra story

Plays

The Oresteia, a trilogy of plays by Aeschylus
Aeschylus

Aeschylus was an Ancient Greece playwright. He is often recognized as the father or the founder of tragedy, and is the earliest of the three Greek tragedy whose Play survive extant, the others being Sophocles and Euripides....
Electra
Electra (Sophocles)

Electra or Elektra is a Ancient Greece tragedy Play by Sophocles. Its date is not known, but various stylistic similarities with the Philoctetes and the Oedipus at Colonus lead scholars to suppose that it was written towards the end of Sophocles' career....
, play by Sophocles
Sophocles

Sophocles was the second of the three classical Greece tragedy whose work has survived. His first plays were written later than those of Aeschylus and earlier than those of Euripides....
Electra
Electra (Euripides)

Euripides' Electra was probably written in the mid 410s BC, likely after 413 BC. It is unclear whether it was first produced before or after Sophocles' Electra of the Electra story....
, play by Euripides
Euripides

Euripides was the last of the three great tragedy of classical Athens . Ancient scholars thought that Euripides had written ninety-five plays, although four of those were probably written by Critias....
Electra, play by Jean Giraudoux
Jean Giraudoux

Hippolyte Jean Giraudoux was a French novelist, essayist, diplomat and playwright. He is considered among the most important French dramatists of the period between World War I and World War II....
Electra, drama by Danilo Kiš
Danilo Kiš

Danilo Ki? was a Yugoslavian/Serbian writer of Hungarian people/Jewish?Serbs origin....
The Flies
The Flies

The Flies is a play by Jean-Paul Sartre, written in 1943. It is an adaption of the Electra myth, previously used by the Greek drama Sophocles, Aeschylus and Euripedes....
, a play by Jean-Paul Sartre
Jean-Paul Sartre

Jean-Paul Charles Aymard Sartre , commonly known simply as Jean-Paul Sartre , was a French existentialism philosopher, playwright, novelist, screenwriter, political activist, biographer, and literary criticism....
, modernizing the Electra myth around the theme of existentialism
Existentialism

Existentialism is a term that has been applied to the work of a number of nineteenth and twentieth century philosophers who, despite profound doctrinal differences, took the human subject — not merely the thinking subject, but the acting, feeling, living human individual and his or her conditions of existence — as a starting point...
.
Elektra, a play by Hugo von Hofmannsthal
Hugo von Hofmannsthal

Hugo von Hofmannsthal , was an Austrian novelist, libretto, poet, dramatist, narrator, and essayist....
, based on the Sophocles play.
Mourning Becomes Electra
Mourning Becomes Electra

Mourning Becomes Electra is a play cycle written by American playwright Eugene O'Neill. The play premiered on Broadway at the Guild Theatre on 26 October 1931 where it ran for 150 performances before closing March 1932....
, play by Eugene O'Neill
Eugene O'Neill

Eugene Gladstone O'Neill was an American playwright, and Nobel laureate in Nobel Prize in Literature. His plays are among the first to introduce into American drama the techniques of Realism , associated with Russian playwright Anton Chekhov, Norwegian playwright Henrik Ibsen, and Swedish playwright August Strindberg....
, based on Aeschylus
Electricidad, play by Luis Alfaro
Luis Alfaro

Luis Alfaro is a renowned Chicano performance artist, writer, theater director, and social activist. His plays and fiction are set in Los Angeles's Chicano barrios, including the Pico Union district of Downtown LA, and often feature gay and lesbian and working class subjects....
, modern adaptation of Electra based in the Chicano barrio
Infamante Electra (2005) a play by Benjamín Galemiri
Molora (2004) a play by Yael Farber

Opera

Elektra
Elektra (opera)

Elektra is a one-act opera by Richard Strauss, to a German-language libretto by Hugo von Hofmannsthal adapted from his drama of 1903?the first of many such collaborations between composer and librettist....
, by Richard Strauss
Richard Strauss

Richard Georg Strauss was a German composer of the late Romantic music and early modern eras, particularly of operas, Lieder and tone poems. Strauss was also a prominent Conducting....
, with libretto by Hugo von Hofmannsthal
Hugo von Hofmannsthal

Hugo von Hofmannsthal , was an Austrian novelist, libretto, poet, dramatist, narrator, and essayist....
, based on his own play
Elektra, by Mikis Theodorakis
Mikis Theodorakis

Mikis Theodorakis is one of the most popular Greek composers. He is known internationally for his scores in the films, Zorba the Greek , Z , and Serpico ....
Mourning Becomes Electra
Mourning Becomes Electra

Mourning Becomes Electra is a play cycle written by American playwright Eugene O'Neill. The play premiered on Broadway at the Guild Theatre on 26 October 1931 where it ran for 150 performances before closing March 1932....
, by Marvin David Levy, based on Eugene O'Neill
Eugene O'Neill

Eugene Gladstone O'Neill was an American playwright, and Nobel laureate in Nobel Prize in Literature. His plays are among the first to introduce into American drama the techniques of Realism , associated with Russian playwright Anton Chekhov, Norwegian playwright Henrik Ibsen, and Swedish playwright August Strindberg....
's play
Idomeneo
Idomeneo

Idomeneo, re di Creta ossia Ilia e Idamante is an Italian language opera by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. The libretto was adapted by Varesco from a French text by Antoine Danchet, which had been set to music by Andr? Campra as Idom?n?e in 1712....
, by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart Mozart showed prodigious ability from his earliest childhood in Salzburg. Already competent on keyboard and violin, he composed from the age of five and performed before European royalty; at seventeen he was engaged as a court musician in Salzburg, but grew restless and traveled in search of a better position, always...
, where she plays a minor role.

Films

Electra, film by Michael Cacoyannis
Michael Cacoyannis

Michael Cacoyannis is a prominent cinema of Greece best-known for his 1964 film Zorba the Greek . Much of his work is rooted in classical texts, especially those of the Tragedy#Greek tragedy Euripides....
, starring Irene Papas
Irene Papas

Irene Papas is a Greece Actor and occasional singer, who has starred in over seventy films in a career spanning more than fifty years....
, based on Euripides.
Ellie (movie), B-movie which transfers the story to a Southern U.S. locale.
Szerelmem, Elektra (aka Elektra, My Love), film by Miklós Jancsó
Miklós Jancsó

Mikl?s Jancs? is a Hungarian people film director and screenwriter.Jancs? achieved international prominence in the 1960s. His most famous works include Szeg?nyleg?nyek , The Red and the White and Red Psalm ....
, starring Mari Törocsik.
Filha da Mãe, and Mal Nascida, both by portuguese film director João Canijo
João Canijo

Jo?o Canijo is a Portugal film director....
.
elektraZenSuite (2006), medium-length film by Alessandro Brucini, based on texts by Aeschylus, Sophocles, William Shakespeare, Hugo von Hofmannsthal, Sylvia Plath, and the Zen Buddhist monk Takuan Soho.

Music

La tragédie d'Oreste et Électre, an album based on Sartre's The Flies
The Flies

The Flies is a play by Jean-Paul Sartre, written in 1943. It is an adaption of the Electra myth, previously used by the Greek drama Sophocles, Aeschylus and Euripedes....
by the british band Cranes.