Poetry and Drama in ancient Greece:
Homer (c. around 850 BCE)
Homer is unarguably the greatest poet of ancient times. He is the
composer of Iliad and the Odyssey which hold the privilege of
being the greatest poems of world literature. Although it is not
known for sure when Homer was born, the time of his birth is
estimated somewhere between the 8th and 9th century B.C,
however, another school of thought states that Homer lived during
the era of the Trojan war in the early 12th century B.C. Homer
belonged to Greece by birth but the exact location of his birth and
living is also doubtful. Some believe that he was born on Chios
Island while others say he lived in Ionia. The dialect and
descriptions in his poems point towards the latter. Not much is
known about Homer the person and therefore, his poems are used
to depict his personality and life. For example, Homer is thought to
be blind due to the description presented of the blind bard in The
Odyssey. In fact, it is also supposed that the word Homer was used
to address blind men roaming the streets reciting classical poetry.
Other than being a poet, historians believe that Homer was also a
story teller and a court singer.
Although there has been a great deal of controversy about the
question whether Homer alone wrote the two famous poems, much
of the evidence points towards Homer being the author due to the
consistent style of writing. Also some analysts argue that Homer
may have written one of the poems but not the other since both
differ greatly in style. In contrast, the reason other analysts state
for this difference is that Iliad was written in his youth while
Odyssey was created during Homer’s years of age.
The famous epic, Iliad narrates the happenings in the city of Ilion
during the Trojan War. Ilion was a city within the state of Troy.
The word Iliad is derived from the name of the city and its literal
meaning is ‘something concerned with Ilion’. The Iliad is a poetic
description of the war, its main characters, fighters, incidents and
scenes from the war. It explains how the Greek and Trojan
warriors gain strength from their Gods and make sacrifices in their
name. Although the Iliad focuses only on the last year of the war,
it is an exceptionally lengthy account of the warfare.
Odyssey is based on a Greek character Odysseus. This epic poem
focuses on the ten year long journey Odysseus made from Troy to
Ithaca after the end of the Trojan War. The events leading to the
start and conclusion of the war are explained in detail. The poetic
story illustrates the dangerous adventures of Odysseus on his
journey back home and also the ordeals his family goes through in
Ithaca in his absence. The poem is written in 12, 110 lines of
dactylic hexameter. It has been translated into numerous modern
languages of the world and continues to be read widely.
Although the Iliad and Odyssey are Homer’s best known poems,
more of his works, for instance, Homeric Hymns have come to
surface. Sadly a lot of his other works are believed to be lost in
time.
Aeschylus (c. 525-456 BCE)
The first of the three classical playwrights of 5th-century Athens,
Aeschylus was born near Athens in 525 BCE, in the village of
Eleusis. His father was called Euphorion, and was of noble
descent. As a young man Aeschylus would have been influenced
by two historic events: the exile of Hippias, a dictator, in 510 BCE,
and the establishment of democracy in Athens under Cleisthenes in
508 BCE.
Aeschylus was a soldier in his youth, and took part in the Persian
Wars. His epitaph (self-authored as an entry for a contest in 489
BCE) depicts him fighting at Marathon in 490 BCE, a battle which
is considered to be among the most important moments in
Athenian history. At Marathon, the Athenians defeated the
Persians and halted a Persian invasion. His brother, Cynegeirus,
died fighting at Marathon. Aeschylus may also have fought at the
battle of Salamis, a sea battle that defeated an even larger Persian
invasion force.
His first win at the drama festival (City Dionysia) came in 484
BCE, although scholars do not know the name of the trilogy that
won.We do, however, know the name of his winning trilogy for
the festival in 472 BCE -- The Persians -- sponsored by Pericles
himself, then an aspiring politician. The Persians deserves mention
because the play is about the Persian defeat at Salamis, and it was
unusual for the plays at the festival to deal with topics other than
the pantheon of Greek myth. Aeschylus left Athens in 471 BCE to
attend court at Syracuse, ruled by the tyrant Hieron, a famous
patron of the arts. When he returned to Athens for the festival in
468 BCE, a twenty-eight year old named Sophocles, competing for
the first time, won first place over the great Aeschylus.
Popular as he was, the Athenian dramatists often walked a fine line
between innovation and irreverence. Aeschylus was prosecuted for
revealing the mysteries of Eleusis in one of his plays. Although he
was eventually proven innocent, this accusation remained a stain
on his character. Driven from the city by growing social and
political unrest, Aeschylus died far away from Athens, in Sicily, in
456 BCE.
A prolific writer, Aeschylus had written between seventy and
ninety plays by the time of his death in 456 BCE. Only seven of
his plays have survived: Agamemnon, The Libation Bearers , and
The Eumenides (these three plays compose the tragic trilogy
known as The Oresteia ), The Persians, Seven Against Thebes, The
Supplicants, and Prometheus Bound . Some scholars believe that
Prometheus Bound may be wrongly attributed to Aeschylus. Most
of his plays were written for the annual Athenian drama
competition, the City Dionysia, which Aeschylus won thirteen
times. At this festival, three chosen dramatists would perform three
tragedies and a satyr play. The Oresteia is the only complete Greek
tragic trilogy extant today.
Sophocles (c. 496-406 BCE)
Sophocles' work is considered the pinnacle
of Greek tragedy. Born in near Athens in
496 BCE in the town of Colonus, in his
ninety-year lifespan he witnessed the rise
and fall of the Athenian Golden Age.
Sophocles was the son of a wealthy
manufacturer. He grew up during the Persian
Wars, and was chosen to participate in the
victory celebrations for the Greek naval
victory at Salamis in 480 BCE, an honor that
suggests that the young Sophocles was
particularly talented and handsome. Indeed,
he is thought to have performed some of the
roles in his early plays, but was unable to
continue as an actor due to problems with
his voice.
Sophocles was popular in Athens, and,
perhaps as a result of the patriotism he
developed as a young man, remained in
Athens throughout his life despite multiple summons from local
rulers to visit other cities and regions. A close friend of Pericles,
he held several public offices throughout his life in addition to
being a leading dramatist. Despite a reported aversion to politics,
Sophocles did play a signifcant role in Athenian social and
political life. In his old age he was honored with an important
advisory position in the Athenian government to help deal with the
aftermath of the disastrous military campaign at Syracuse. His
public career seem to have started when he was elected treasurer of
the Delian League in 443 BCE, and general of the Athenian army
in 441 BCE. Under the command of Pericles, he participated in the
military campaign against Samos. Sophocles was also a founder of
the cult of the god Asclepius in 420 BCE, an activity which may
have been connected to the establishment of a public hospital. He
was also the father of two sons, one of whom went on to become a
playwright. Sophocles died in 406 BCE.
Revered by modern scholars for his treatment of the individual and
for the complex issues that his plays address, Sophocles was also
revered by his contemporaries: he recieved the first prize for tragic
drama over Aeschylus at the drama festival (the City Dionysia)
held in 468 BCE, when he was twenty-eight years old. He wrote
around one hundred and twenty-three plays for the Athenian
theatre, and won twenty-four festivals -- he placed second in every
festival that did not win. Only seven of his plays, however, have
survived intact. They are (in the order in which they are thought to
have been written): Ajax, Antigone , The Women of Trachis ,
Oedipus the King, Electra , Philoctetes , and Oedipus at Colonus.
From the fragments remaining, and from references to lost plays in
other works, scholars have discovered that Sophocles wrote on an
enormous variety of topics. He also introduced several key
innovations, including ending the tradition of writing trilogies on
connected topics at the City Dionysia, introducing painted
background scenery, changing the number of speaking actors from
two to three, and enlarging the chorus from twelve to fifteen men.