The Sons of Atreides Cursed by Fate – A Comparison of Agamemnon and Oreste by Vittorio Alfieri and the First Volumes of the Dune Cycle by Frank Herbert as Works Inspired by the Oresteian Myth

This article presents a comparative analysis of two literary works that are distant in time and form – the tragedies Agamemnon and Oreste by Italian playwright Vittorio Alfieri and the first volumes of Frank Herbertʼs science fiction cycle Dune – pointing to their common roots in the Orestean myth. The work demonstrates how the story of Orestes and the cursed Atreides, known primarily from Aeschylusʼ Oresteia, has been transformed and adapted to different cultural, ideological, and literary contexts. Elements such as the motif of ancestral revenge, tragic conflict, wandering and hiding among foreign people, anagnorisis, as well as the figures of the father, mother, and siblings are analysed. Attention is paid to the educational function of the myth – ethical in the Greek version, political in Alfieri, and social and ecological in Herbert. A special place is given to the reflection on the figure of Orestes as a symbolic figure of a man entangled in inherited conflicts, whose fate reflects the anxieties and tensions of the eras just before the great change. The article also addresses the question of the genres of classical tragedy and the fantasy novel, asking whether both forms can be understood as contemporary realizations of the functions of myth and tragedy. It also points to the profound potential of mythology as a tool for critical reflection on the condition of individuals and society.