Iphigenie in Aulis1944

This is the first of four tragedies written by Hauptmann in blank verse, on a subject matter that also exercised the Greek tragic poets. The title indicates that it is intended as a tetralogy. In large part it overlaps with the Oresteia of Aeschylus, even though Hauptmann uses other mythological sources than the Greek poet. Agamemnons Tod and Elektra match the Oresteia (different story line); Iphigenie in Delphi changes the end by having Iphigenie and Orestes meeting in Delphi for the necessary purification. The first part is Hauptmann's setting of the myth of the girl's sacrifice in order to placate Demeter, whose stag had been hunted and killed by Agamemnon. She is rescued by the goddess (and reappears later at Delphi); but the humans don't know this and therefore Klytemnaestra enacts her revenge in Part II, Orestes his revenge in Part III, and so to Delphi. Compared to Aeschylus, this is even more sombre, gloomy, but also cast in a highly melodramatic vein which is Hauptmann's inheritance from the late 19th century. It is decidedly unclassical in manner, and not in the least comparable to Goethe or Schiller, especially in its versification which glories in the colours of blood and guilt.