Ritual, Performative Realities Aristotle’s Poetics

• • • • Origins of Drama – Phallic Procession, Komasts, etc.
Athenian Dramatic Festivals – Ritualized Secularism Drama: Production Elements Aristotle’s Poetics – Drama Explained?
– Antigone via Aristotle 2

“Goat-Song,” Phallic Procession, Komasts, etc.

• • • ethnic-geographical psychological-anthropological Dionysian-ritual Aristotle 4

• •
Komos
– (Dionysian) revel » (also term for dramatic production) Phallic procession – Dionysian phallus pole on parade Procession of the Phallus Pole 5 Komasts: archaic Corinthian vase

Dionysus Hephaestus padded, phallic costume Proto-Drama (?): komos-like Performance of the Return of Hephaestus Protocorinthian vase painting , 600-575 BCE 6

Ritualized Secularism

• Archaic Greek tyranny (600s-500s BCE) – democratizing despotism – Dionysian reorganization • Athens – Pisistratus (r. 561-572 BCE) & City/Greater Dionysia › 1 st tragedies ca. 534 BCE – Democratic developments, 511 › 1 st comedies 486 BCE 8

• • • • Rural Dionysia (Dec.) Lenaea (late Jan/Feb) – 440/430 dramatic competition instituted Anthisteria (Feb) City/Greater Dionysia (late March) – principal dramatic festival at Athens Dionysus 9

• • • • • Assignment of choruses
Proagōn
– preview of plays “Introduction” processional – to and from Academy Official parade (pompē) Preliminary ceremonial – theater purified – public honors – tribute displayed • Poetic/dramatic contests – Dithyrambic choruses (10 + 10) – Comedy (5 plays) – Tragedy (3 tetralogies) » tetralogy = sequence of… › 3 tragedies › 1 satyr drama by an individual poet, and presented in a single day 10

• • Dual Focus (Barlow) – ancient, mythic, heroic, archetypal – contemporary, political, communal, skeptical Ambivalent affirmation – Vernant – Hall Theater at Epidaurus 11

Viewing/Performing Space

Parthenon Roman Theater
Acropolis with Theaters Theater of Dionysus
N

Basic Design: Theater of Dionysus ca. 420 BCE
theatron
(“viewing place,” auditorium, theater) wooden bleachers stone seats (dignitaries) orkhēstra (“dancing space” for chorus)
kerkis
(“wedge” seating section) entry (parodos, eisodos) altar entry (parodos, eisodos) steps skene (stage building) low wooden stage with skene (from ca. 420 BCE) 15

Tragic chorus, masked, dancing, singing (ancient vase) 17

Satyr choreuts (chorus members) Coryphaeus (chorus leader) Playwright Demetrius 18

Dionysus and Ariadne Queen-character Himeros (= Eros) Heracles (Pappo)silenos Pronomos (piper) Charinus (kithara player) King-character 19

• • • • • •
Personnel (all male)
poet (poiētēs) producer (khorēgos) director (didaskalos, “teacher”) actors (hupokritai) chorus and “chorus leader” (koruphaios) piper • • • • •
Gear
masks costumes props scenery special effects – mekhanē » crane to lower gods et al.
– ekkuklēma » trolley to wheel out corpses etc.
20

• • • • • prologue – portion preceding parodos
parodos
– chorus entry episodes – segments between major choral numberrs stasima (sing. stasimon) – major choral numbers (not including parodos)
kommos
– lamentation scenes (chorus character sung dialogue) • • • •
exodos
– portion following last
stasimon
stichomythia – rapid back-and-forth dialogue
agōn
– debate scene messenger speeches – description of off-stage action 21

Drama Explained?
Antigone via Aristotle

• • • • •
Method
definition classification analysis teleology critical evaluation • • • •
Critical foci
organic coherence plausibility / realism emotional power utility / enjoyment – therapeutic value – educational value 23

• Plot, muthos – simple – complex – episodic – anagnorisis – peripeteia – hamartia – complication / reversal • Ethical component – ethos-“temperament” – thought – hamartia 24

(discussion)
• • • •
Criteria fulfilled
Royal family (superior) pity reversal (peripeteia) for Creon catharsis – Creon’s – but ours??
• •
Criteria left wanting
Dual protagonists – Antigone, Creon – violates Aristotelian economy of plot??
Pity for Antigone?
– or admiration: noble defiance of patriarchy?
25

• fit – royal family (superior) – felt pity » emphasis plot – role reversal – Creon » peripeteia – catharsis » Creon’s • • dual protagonists – Antigone, Creon – violates Aristotelian economy of plot??
didn’t feel pity for Antigone – noble defiance of patriarchy 26

“A tragedy, then, is the imitation of an action that is serious and also, as having magnitude, complete in itself; in language with pleasurable accessories, each kind brought in separately in the parts of the work; in a dramatic, not in a narrative form; with incidents arousing pity and fear, wherewith to accomplish its catharsis of such emotions.” (7-8) 27