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I don't think anyone dies in the Helen, or Iphigenia among the Taurians. The action is not begun by a death in the Hippolytus, or the Medea, or the Bacchae, or actually the Agamemnon, depending on where you want to start. So, no, I don't know where you got your definition of tragedy, but it's incorrect. Aristotle describes tragdy as "an imitation of a noble and complete action, having the proper magnitude". That frequently *involves* death, because many great actions involve death, but it doesn't *necessitate* death.
Tragoidos is a formal definition, describing a play written with a prologos (where a single speaker introduces the action), a parodos (where the chorus enters, usually through the sides of the stage but in the Eumenides unusually through the back of the stage - very startling stage effect, this), and then alternating episodai (where the characters interact in largely imabic verse) and stasima (where the chorus comments on a topic related to the action), ending with an exodos, where the action is resolved and the chorus leaves the stage after delivering a brief final speech.
The trilogy of the Oresteia is tragedy not because everybody dies, or indeed because anyone dies, particularly, but because it was structured in a particular way and entered as a tragedy in the dramatic contest of the Great Dionysia at Athens. It has many tragic elements and themes, as I believe I mentioned above. But the bodycount has nothing to do with it per se.
Oh, and Clytaemestra (the "n" is a Latinisation, before anyone starts) isn't Orestes stepmother. If she was there wouldn't be nearly such a big problem. She is his mother. This is sort of key. |
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