WEEK 9: GREEK TRAGEDY (3/21)
Etymology: tragodia, "song of the goat"
History (according to Aristotle, Poetics):
(1) improvisational, dithyrambic and Dionysiac, single actor + chorus
(2) Aeschylean, two actors (limited dialogue), separation of chorus, protagonist
(3) Sophoclean: three actors, scenery >> Euripidean, development of chorus
Satyr-plays
trochaic tetrameter >> iambic trimeter (natural Greek speech rhythm)
iamb: short-long (William Blake, "I Love the Jocund Dance": "I love the jocund dance,/the softly breathing song...")
trochee: long-short (Longfellow, Song of Hiawatha: "Should you ask me, whence these stories?")
Aristotle's definition: "Tragedy is an imitation of an action that is admirable, complete (composed of an introduction, a middle part and an ending), and possesses magnitude; in language made pleasurable, each of its species separated in different parts; performed by actors, not through narration; effecting through pity and fear the purification of such emotions."
Place of origin?
The Greek Theater
general plan and terminology: skene, koilon, diazoma, parodos, orchestra
Performative context:
Athenian dramatic festivals: City Dionysia, Theater of Dionysus (and artist's rendition)
context of competition: trilogies, prizes, choregic monuments
costumes and staging: masks (tragic and comic), machinery (ekkyklema, mechane, sound effects), scenery (pinakes, thyromata)
appropriate subject matter: mythology
exceptions: The Sack of Miletus (Phrynichus), The Persians (Aeschylus)
Elements:
peripateia, "reversal of fortune"
hamartia/hybris, "mistake"/"arrogance"
anagnorisis, "recognition"
deus ex machina, "the god from the machine"
History at Athens
Thespis, 535-533?
end of sixth century? (and so democratic?)
Aeschylus >> Sophocles >> Euripides >> others
Aeschylus, Agamemnon (458)
story of the House of Atreus (dynastic tragedy)
tragedy of Trojan War >> domestic tragedy >> political tragedy
role of women: Clytemnestra, Cassandra
lex talionis
theme of entanglement and subjugation
mistakes, arrogance, reversals of fortune
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Updated 3-8-08, bolmarcich[at]mail.utexas.edu