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KATHLEEN L. KOMAR. Reclaiming Klytemnestra: Revenge or Reconciliation. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2003. xiv + 224 pp. Cloth, $34.95.
Kathleen Komar's book on Klytemnestra is an important addition to the growing number of works that trace the tradition of a certain classic or myth and place it in its historical context. In addition to defining each author's viewpoint, she has related the presentation of Klytemnestra's myth to the way that women have been treated in different societies and times.
Komar rightly begins with the ancients and claims that the myths about Klytemnestra show roles "traditionally assigned to women," namely, "the demonic and vengeful woman, the adulterous wife, or the avenging mother" (6). After Homer and Stesichorus, the ancient Greek playwrights are the main sources: Aeschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides. They give Klytemnestra more agency than Homer or Stesichorus does.
Komar follows Zeitlin in seeing Aeschylus' Oresteia as representing "the shift from Mother Right to patriarchal laws" (29). A strong feminist note is sounded from the beginning as Komar herself gives a voice to what she sees as the silenced figure of Klytemnestra. She concentrates on the absurd biology of the Oresteia, which acquits Orestes by erasing Klytemnestra from motherhood, defining her as a mere receptacle for the male seed (a doctrine that Aristotle also followed in his Generation of Animals 726f.) In the Agamemnon, Komar admires Klytemnestra's rhetorical ability in seducing Agamemnon onto the tapestries and into the house. She gives less time to Klytemnestra's exultant speech following the slaying of Agamemnon, which rejoices in his blood, "watering" her much as the ground itself rejoices in spring rain when buds are born (Ag. 1389-92). Her blatantly sexual imagery as applied to the murder of a husband would have shocked and alienated the original male audience in Athens.
This study might have benefited from a more extended treatment of Klytemnestra's cogent reasons for killing Agamemnon: that she is avenging her daughter's death and punishing Agamemnon for Cassandra, and that she is an embodiment of the ancient curse on the house of Atreus (Ag. 1431-47). Komar makes the point that vengeance for a daughter's slaying plays a greater role than jealousy: "Klytemnestra's motivation and intentions are announced and defended before she even glimpses Kassandra" (32). Komar defines...