0606IphigeniaTauris_Goethe

0606IphigeniaTauris_Goethe

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Iphigenie auf Tauris, drama (prose version first performed 1779; later revised by Goethe as blank-verse play and performed 1800). [text at the Project Gutenberg link above]

J.E.Cumming, "Iphigenia" in A. Grafton et al., edd. The Classical Tradition (Harvard, 2010).

L. Secci, Il mito di Ifigenia: da Euripide al Novecento (Rome, 2008).

Both Iphigenia stories were very important sources for literary, pictoral, and especially musical artists in the 18th Century: "It was Tauris... that became the dominant subject [over Aulis]. The moral clarity of the plot, the lack of a love interest, and the noble friendship of Orestes and Pylades appealed to neoclassical sensibilities." (Cumming)

Wikipedia (right) shows Angelica Kauffmann's drawing of the Weimar production (1802) of the play with Goethe himself playing Orestes (center).

Three figures in classical garb: one man helping another who is seated, and a woman standing near a classical building

Based ultimately upon Euripides, Goethe's Iphigenia is a celebration of 18th-century humane morals. Goethe's heroine has tamed the Taurian king Thoas and caused him to end the barbaric practice of sacrificing all wayfarers who arrive at the island. Appropriately, Thoas falls in love with this enlightened soul, though she rejects him. When Orestes and Pylades arrive, unknown to any of the Taurians — much less to Iphigenia herself — Thoas insists that the Greeks be sacrificed to Artemis.

Once recognition is achieved, Iphigenia's moral dilemma is hightened: should she effect her brother's escape and risk his life, or should she obey the heavy-fisted law of the tyrannt? Her ultimate decision is to reveal all candidly to the king. Thoas's reaction is noble, because he has been tempered and trained by Iphigenia to be such. He allows all of them, including Iphigenia herself, to depart unharmed.

Goethe's mythological world lacks gods. Only moralized "menschlichkeit" (humanity) motivates the humans to act. Thus the play is a product of the Enlightenment, but also an artifact that influenced German education for generations.