Unmentionables : The Erinyes as the culmination of alpha privative and negated language in Aeschylus' "Oresteia".

This thesis traces Aeschylus' use of negated language, often novel alpha privatives, throughout his Orestia to create a nexus of associations that culminates in the final play, and briefly contextualizes his particular development of this specialized vocabulary in the context of its use in earlier poetry.

The choruses of Agamemnon and Cheophori predominately use this language as an attempt to come to terms with actions that destroy social and sexual relations.

In Eumenides , the chorus of Erinyes distills negation into its own specialized vocabulary that clarifies all the alpha privatives flowing through the previous plays, and identifies itself as the culmination and embodiment of the reciprocal violence that calls it forth.

The alpha privative and negated language of both Cassandra and Clytemnestra significantly differs in intent from that of the chorus.

The prophetess uses this specialized vocabulary to connect past familial violence with the coming murders in the house, whereas the queen uses it to express sinister wished in a manner clear to the audience, but opaque to the chorus.

Sophocles and Euripides respond to Aeschylus' dramatic vision and focused vocabulary with their own plays.

In the Iphigenia in Tauris, Euripides transfers alpha privative language from the Erinyes to the land of the Taurians, characterizing this space as a type of underworld from which Iphigenia and Orestes must be rescued.

In the Oedipus at Colonus, Sophocles uses alpha privative and negated language to characterize the Erinyes as beings that defy direct description.

This language may also suggest that the goddesses are liminal entities, capable of bridging the gap between the chthonic and Olympian, two divine forces that never come to terms in Aeschylus' plays.

This thesis adds to the prior scholarship on Aeschylus by revealing and tracing his investment of alpha privative and negated language with thematic meaning from its earliest appearance in Septem to its full flowering in the Oresteia, and by shedding light on Aeschylus' influence on both Sophocles and Euripides.