All in all, Orestes is a peculiar customer—not exactly insane but strange and unknowable. His consciousness is entirely his own. And in this respect he is a typical Euripidean creation. Euripides introduced to the Greek tragic stage a concern for the solitary, inward self, for consciousness as a private content that might or might not match up with the outside appearance of a person, that might or might not make sense to an observer. He lived at a time when philosophers as well as artists were becoming intrigued by this difference between outside and inside, appearance and reality, and were
...more
