Lecture Terms

Some terms from lecture defined:

• tautology -- lit. "same-saying": a repetition of the same statement.
• dilemma -- lit. "double proposition":  a situations involving the choice of two (or, loosely, more) alternatives, either of which is (or appears) equally unfavourable.

In Prometheus' opening soliloquy, Æschylus uses these and other lingustic devices of intensification to help impress the force of Prometheus' situation the more effectively in the minds of his drama's audiences. This profound felicity with language--using the full range of the grammatical, rhetorical, etymological and idiomatic resources available--is a characteristic of (indeed almost a criterion for) first-order dramatic geniuses such as Æschylus, Shakespeare and Shaw.