Aristotle

Aristotle was a Greek philosopher and scientist during ancient Greece, born in 384 B.C. After his father’s death, Aristotle moved to Athens and studied at the Academy of Plato, where he became a student and colleague of Plato for 20 years. Aristotle’s writings were written the same way as Plato’s writings, but after a while, Aristotle began to distance his views from Plato’s views. Although Aristotle’s views were held separate from Plato’s, he still acknowledged Plato and everything Plato taught him.

Aristotle’s definition of tragedy is that the play has to have parts demonstrating pity or fear to reach a state of purification. Although no one knows why he used purification as part of his definition, many believe he meant tragedies can help people put his or her own fears in perspective (“Aristotle”).

There were five terms used when it came to Greek drama. A couple of them were hubris, meaning the use of violence to humiliate, hamartia meaning the shortcoming of a hero in a tragedy, and anagnorisis, which means the discovery causing a change from ignorance to knowledge (“Hubris”; “Hamartia”; “Anagnorisis”). The other two are peripeteia, meaning the turning point of the drama as the plot heads towards the end, and catharsis, which is purifying emotions through art (“Peripeteia”; “Catharsis”).

Dionysus and the Dionysian Festival

Dionysus was the son of Zeus and Semele, a mortal woman who was also Cadmus’ daughter. Dionysus was known as the god of vegetation and fruitfulness, but also as the god of wine and ecstasy. Dionysian festivals were held in honor of Dionysus representing the “lifeblood” of nature, and women were the ones who enjoyed the festival. Since Dionysus was the god of ecstasy, his cult had a big part in art and literature, so at his festivals, tragedies and comedies were performed all the time. He was also honored in dithyrambs, which are lyrical poems (“Dionysus”).

The drama competition was all about three tragedians, and each had to show three tragedies each, a satyr play, and a lighthearted farcical drama (“Festivals and Theaters”). There were three types of main plays at Dionysian festivals, and one type were tragedies, which are plays that are serious and have many tough events and hardships that happen to or because of the protagonist (“Tragedy”). The other two plays are comedies and satyr plays.

Comedies are plays that are meant to be humorous and make the audience laugh, and it is essentially the opposite of a tragedy (“Comedy”). A satyr play was a mixture of a tragedy and comedy, containing the tragic structure but keeps the happy mood alive (“Satyr Play”).

Greek Dramatists

Thespis was a playwright who was best known for creating the idea of a tragedy, and he was the first to perform a tragedy at Dionysia. Thespis was also known as the first actor of Greek drama, and some scholars say that he invented prologue and dialogue instead of having plays be choral (“Thespis”). Aeschylus was a dramatist who also fought for Greece when they were getting invaded by Persia, which also led to one of his plays called “persians” which won the first competition of spring 472 B.C. He is most known for his “Oedipus” trilogy and the “Ortesia” trilogy, which helped him win a couple drama competitions. Some of his innovations and achievements were adding a second actor and reducing the part of the chorus, as well as using stage settings and machinery, and wrote plays with emotional and strong language to engage with the audience (“Aeschylus”).

Besides being just a playwright, Sophocles was known for a junior colleague of Pericles as well as an advisory commissioner trusted to help mend Athens’ hardships at the time. As a playwright, he won the most first place victories at the Dionysian festival as many as 24 times, and one of his biggest innovations was adding a third actor into plays, allowing more characters to be inserted into his plays (“Sophocles”). Euripides is perhaps the most unsuccessful playwright on this list, only because he competed with Sophocles, who won 24 times compared to Euripides, who only won four times. Euripides differed when it came to protagonists, as his were all down-to-earth men and women who had flaws, and in many of his tragedies, the character’s flaws were the cause of it (“Euripides”).

Greek Theater

The Greek Chorus was a group of people who helped portray the dramatists ideas of the play as well as guiding the audience through the emotional and religious parts of the play. Each dramatist used their choruses differently but nevertheless, they were still a huge part of the play (“Dramatic literature”). A strophe was the first part of a choral ode that the chorus sang, moving from the right to the left on stage (“Strophe”). An antistrophe was the second part of the ode, and the chorus sang while moving from left to right, rather than the right to the left like they did in the strophe (“Antistrophe”).

The theater had three parts, which was a large dancing floor, dressing room, and an auditorium around the dancing floor. In the center, there was also an altar to Dionysus, since these competitions were made for him (“Western theatre”). The masks has different looks which were based off sex, age, class, and facial expressions. They were used for multiple reasons, one being that females were not allowed to perform, and the fact that they only had three actors (“Dramatic literature”).

Oedipus Background

Laius, king of Thebes, went out to the Oracle at Delphi to find out the fate of his child (“Oedipus”). The Oracle at Delphi is the most famous ancient oracle, which belonged to Apollo. The oracle was used by people to communicate with the gods and see the fate of one’s life (“Oracle”). Since the oracle had predicted that Laius’ child would kill his father and marry his mother, he was going to kill the child. King Polybus of Corinth and his wife took the baby into their arms, and raised him.

As a young man, Oedipus visited Delphi, learning that he would end up killing his father and marrying his mother, so he never went back to Corinth. On the way to Thebes, Oedipus ran into Laius, and after Laius started a fight, Oedipus’ temper got to him and killed Laius. At Thebes, Oedipus sees the curse of the Sphinx, and helps Thebes out by solving the riddle the Sphinx gave them and freed all of Thebes. As a reward, Oedipus was given the throne and Laius’ wife, Jocasta (“Oedipus”).

Works Cited:

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