Aristotle, Theatre Spaces
Theatre 100 -- Dr. Blood
week 2 of class
Definitions - Theatre Spaces
 Theatre must have a live performer
and a live audience. That’s it.
 Proscenium stage
 Thrust stage
 Arena stage
 Found spaces
 Environmental staging
Audience
 Forms a collective identity
 Cyclic interchange with performers
 Different behaviors expected in different
times, performance styles
 Critic as privileged audience member
 Peer reviewers for grants
 Academic critics
Aristotle’s Poetics
 C. 350 BCE
Aristotle’s Poetics
C. 350 BCE; 1st extant work of literary or
artistic criticism
 Focus on tragedy; did he also write ones on
comedy and epic poetry?
 Imitation is the basis of art (from Plato);
drama is imitation of action
 Definition of tragedy
Six Elements of Drama







In order of importance to Aristotle:
Plot
Character
Thought (theme)
Diction (artistic use of language)
Song/Music
Spectacle
Plot Elements
 Beginning, middle, end structure
 Unity and probability
 A complex vs. a simple plot is preferred;
this includes peripety (reversal) and
anagnorisis (recognition)
 Single vs. double (no subplots)
 Goal (telos) is catharsis - gives drama a
social function in the polis
Character elements
 Characters should also be probable or necessary
 Hero




Good
Aim at propriety
True to life
Consistent
 Hamartia (tragic flaw): meaning much debated
Structure of Tragic Plot
 Prologue
 Parodos
 3-5 Episodes (scenes) alternate with Choric
parts
 Exodus
 Commos (optional) joint chorus and
character section
Old Comedy





5th century BCE
Part of City Dionysia from 487 BCE
Political and social satire
Personal attacks, author’s POV
Aristophanes (c.448-380 BCE) bridges old
and middle comedy; Lysistrata (411 BCE)
is old comedy
Structure of Old Comedy
 “Happy idea:” absurd but clear relevance to
contemporary issue
 Prologue
 Chorus enters and debates the happy idea (agon)
with each other and characters
 Parabasis choral section in the middle, direct
address to audience,
 Scenes of adopting the happy idea
 Komos - reconciliation, often exiting to feast or
revels
Peloponnesian War 431-404 BCE
 Background of Aristophanes’ play: 20 years into
the war
 Athens (Delian League) vs. Sparta (Peloponnesian
League)
 1st phase (10 yrs) Athens’ navy raids coasts,
Sparta repeatedly invades Attica
 Peace of Nicias, 421
 2nd: Athens launches attack on Syracuse in 415,
whole force destroyed 413
 Persian joins Sparta, they chip away at Athens’
allies
 Destroy navy at Aegospotami, 405
Results of Peloponnesian War
 Massive human cost
 Tremendous economic cost; Athens never
regains prosperity
 Democracy vs. oligarchy
 Warfare broke prior rules: devastation of
whole cities, crops and countryside, broken
religious and cultural taboos
 Historians: Thucydides, Xenophon
 How are these real costs lampooned by
Aristophanes?