G r e e k D r a m a. Festival Pan Dionysus City Dionysia Reversals Pan Tragedy- Goat song.

Greek Drama

Festival

• Pan Dionysus

City Dionysia

Reversals

Pan

Tragedy- Goat song

Tragedy Cycle Greeks were looking to investigate moral concepts,

prosperity, satisfaction , pride and retribution

Plays explored self-knowledge, philosophy, governmental design, ethics, and Self-sacrifice for the benefit of the polis

Fate-but fate does not just happen, it is a direct result of a person’s choices and family history

Greek heroes recognize that their choices have consequences, therefore they meet their ends bravely even when they suffer

Society stressed moderation, obedience and respect

Theatre

Dithyramb

Thespis- The first

Chorus-Senate or Everyman

Reversal of Fortune

Tragic Elements: order

Disorder

sacrifice

Restoration

Events are stressed- not character development

Skene Building on stage- equivalent to

modern backstage area

Often served as the royal palace or city

Usually had five doors, 4 of which open onto the stage

Proedria-grassy area between the orchestra and the audience

Proskenion-raised platform in front of the Skene, on which the actors perform

Pinakes-Painted panels; temporary scenic elements usually placed in the openings between doors or columns of skene

Thyromata-Greek: a room with doors to it, a chamber, or a door with posts. Doors with frames that pierce the facade of the skene

Theatres held

14,000-17,000 People

Only men and less than desirable women were permitted to attend the theatre

Performances included:

3 tragedies

Break for lunch

1 Satyr

1 comedy

Aeschylus

influences on Theatre:

Adding a second actor

diminishing the chorus to 50%

dialogue became leading feature

No bloodshed on stage

Improved costumes= Elaborate masks , and platform shoes

Instituted the practice of competing with trilogies, or series of 3 independent dramas.

Aeschylus (525-456 B.C.)

90 plays

79 known titles of 79

7 scripts Prometheus bound

Heavily influenced by heroic period- Unresolved situations, suffer into knowledge, things work out in time

Sophocles (484-406 B.C.)123 plays

7 extant

Heavily influenced by Aeschylus

Antigone 442Oedipus the king 429Oedipus at colonus 401

“Wrote about humanity as it ought to be, ” Paul Roche

Antigone

Fear angerPity

Individual vs authoritarian stateMartyr-idealistic

SophoclesImpact on Theatre

3rd actor

Attempted to bring the beauty of poetry on stage

Spectacular scenery

Contemplated fate, meaning of the universe, the role of the individual & that of the polis

Oedipus Rex

What walks on four legs in the morning,two legs in the afternoon and three legs in the

evening?

Euphorbus

• The parents of Oedipus (A king and Queen) are warned that their son will grow up to murder his father and marry his mother.

• The King and Queen pay a servant to take the child into the mountains, pierce his heels with a knife, tie a rope through his ankles, then swing the child around in the air and smash it to the ground.

• The servant cuts the Baby’s ankles but does not follow through with the smashing

• He takes the child to another city and gives it to a different royal couple

• Oedipus (swollen foot) grows up happy, healthy and very intelligent; however, he meets with a seer who informs him of His destiny.

• Oedipus, unaware of his adoption, leaves because he is afraid of fulfilling the prophecy.

On the road Sphinx plaguing Thebes Ruling Thebes- Another Plague Search for the reason the gods

are unhappy and why the city is cursed

Tiresias, council warn Oedipus to stop

Servant is brought to court Jocasta hangs herself Oedipus gouges out his eyes Banished to attica his daughters

go with him and his sons remain behind

Oedipus dies and ismene and antigone return to Thebes where brothers Eteocles and Polynices are fighting over the throne

Oedipus’ curse falls upon his two sons

Polynices attacks Eteocles who refuses to give up the throne

The princes kill one another in battle

Creon will not allow polynices to be buried

“Women were viewed as highly sexual beings who could not control their sexual urges and had to be restricted for their own benefit. ‘woman is the consumer of men, their sex, their strength, their food, and their wealth, and the instigator of all evils in the world; yet without her, society cannot continue’. http://www.angelfire.com

Women in Greek Society

Different views of women

Property

Legitimate citizen- wives who lived in the home and remained virtuous and unseen, but managed the finances, house and the children. These women were protected and sheltered

Companions and prostitutes more freedom but children could not be citizens

Women’s roles in funerals

Preparing the dead body for burial. In a funeral procession, the females were expected to carry the libations at the front of the group, FOLLOWED by the male relatives. Women prepared food and sacrificed bulls in honor of the gods, and to secure their love for the dead.

Aristotle says, “all human happiness or misery takes the form of action; the end for which we live is a certain kind of activity, not a quality. Character…gives us qualities, but it is in our actions – what we do –that we are happy or the reverse.”

Tragedies are based on Mythology or history and deal with characters' search for the meaning of life and the nature of the gods.

surviving tragedies begin with a prologue= exposition

The chorus then introduces the paradox. where characters are Introduced and mood is created

The final scene is called the exodus

575 bce

800 bce

350 bce

776 First Olympic Games

750 Greek colonies in Italy Music developed/Oriental influence on art Stone architecture Hesiod flourishes Human figures - pottery main subject

462 bce

687 bce

683 Republican rule by aristocrats in Athens

650 Large free-standing sculpture evolves

600 Use of coined money Black attic style in pottery Lyric poetry - Sappho and Alcëus flourish

580 Philosophy and science begin with Thales and Anaximander

561 Tyrant Pelisistratus seizes power, succeeded by his sons

550 Doric architecture standardized; Ionic influences appear

534 Thespis, founder of Greek tragedy, victor at Athenian drama festival

520 Persian domination of Ionia Red-figured style in pottery developed

Philosopher Xenophanes at peak

507 Athenian democracy restored and broadened by Cleisthenes

500 Heraclitus teaches Ephesus in Asia Minor

561-507 Age of

Athenian Tyrants

750-594 Aristocratic Age

350 bce

462 bce

575 bce

687 bce

800 bce

490 Persian Wars Persians repelled at the Battle of Marathon

484 Aeschylus - drama prize

480 Acropolis destroyed by Persians

479 Persia defeated

478 Athens leads in forming Delian League of Greek States

472 Aeschylus- The Persians

468 Sophocles wins contest over Ischylus Aeschylus- 7 Against Thebes

462 Pericles brings democratic reforms to Athens

460 Hippocrates born

459 Rivalry between Athens and Sparta increases

455 Euripides' first tragedy

448 Athenean empire firmly established Parthenon begun

445 30 years peace between Athens and Sparta declared

441 Sophocles' Antigone

478-445 Rise of

Athenean Empire

499-479 Conflict

with Persia

350 bce

462 bce

575 bce

687 bce

800 bce

431 Peloponnesian war between Athens and Sparta breaks out Euripides' Medea

429 Pericles dies

427 Sophocles' Oedipus Rex

423 Aristophanes' The Clouds

414 Aristophanes comedy - The Birds

405 Aristophanes' The Frogs

404 Athens surrenders to Sparta

431-404 Peloponnes

ian War

401 Sophocles Oedipus at Colonus

399 Socrates, tried and condemned, drinks hemlock

385 Plato begins teaching at Athens

382 Sparta seizes citadel of Thebes

379 Sparta expelled from Thebes

378 Spartan-Thebean alliance

371 Sparta defeated by Thebes

404-371 Supremacy of Sparta