Iphigenia in Tauris

Ironically, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe wrote the first draft of his humanist drama while on a trip to enlist recruits for the Weimar military when he was secretly working as a legation councillor. To this day, Iphigenia’s call for friendship, dialogue and fairness is a far cry from the reality of day-to-day politics. But Goethe proposes a processual transformation of the world to counter the cycle of violence and the world-defining oscillation between murder and retribution.

Iphigenia is to be offered as a sacrifice to the goddess of war by her father, Agamemnon, for tactical reasons. She is saved by Diana, the goddess of the moon, and taken to the island of Tauris, where she henceforth serves as a priestess of Diana. Iphigenia is the only woman in a circle of men driven by hate and violence. Having murdered their mother, Clytemnestra, her morose brother Orestes flees to Tauris to escape the vengeful Erinyes. Once there, he and his friend Pylades are captured by the Taurian king, Thoas. After Iphigenia rejects Thoas’ marriage proposal, he commands that the old custom of human sacrifice be revived and the escapees killed. But things take a turn for the better through Iphigenia’s intervention. She places truth and friendship alongside human liberty and “virtually blackmails Thoas with his love” (Rüdiger Safranski). Thanks to her agency and strong will, she is able to convince Thoas to let her and her companions go.