Greek Tragedy: An Overview of
The Golden Age of Greek
Tragedy
5th- 4th BC

1. What is a tragedy?
2. What is a tragic hero?
3. Do citizens have a right or responsibility to rebel against an
unjust law or leader?

Standard: The student identifies, analyzes, and applies knowledge of the themes, structures, and elements of dramatic literature and provides evidence from the text to support understanding; the student: a. Identifies and analyzes types of dramatic literature (i.e., classical tragedy, history play, modern drama). b. Analyzes the characters, structures, and themes of dramatic literature. c. Identifies and analyzes dramatic elements, (i.e., unity of time, place, and action; tragic hero; deus ex machina; recognition; reversal; chorus; aside; dramatic irony). d. Identifies and analyzes how dramatic elements support and enhance the interpretation of dramatic literature.
Standard: The student identifies, analyzes, and applies knowledge of theme in literary works and provides evidence from the works to support understanding.
The student: a. Applies knowledge of the concept that the theme or meaning of a selection represents a universal view or comment on life or society and provides support from the text for the identified theme. b. Evaluates the way an author’s choice of words advances the theme or purpose of the work. c. Applies knowledge of the concept that a text can contain more than one theme. d. Analyzes and compares texts that express a universal theme, and locates support in the text for the identified theme. e. Compares and contrasts the presentation of a theme or topic across genres and explains how the selection of genre affects the delivery of universal ideas about life and society.
i. Archetypal Characters (i.e., hero, good mother, sage, trickster, etc.) ii. Archetypal Patterns (i.e., journey of initiation, search for the father, etc.) iii. Archetypal Symbols (i.e., colors, water, light/dark, etc.) iv. Universal Connections (i.e., making choices, winning/losing, relationships, self & other, etc.)

• Drama began as a form of religious worship to the god Dionysus.
• Earliest forms of drama included religious chants and songs performed by a group of 15 men called the chorus.

Thespis (525 B.C. - thespians) – known as the first actor since he stepped out from the chorus & spoke to them
• performed in intervals between the dancing/singing of the chorus
• took several parts, at times have a dialogue with the chorus
• gradually new stories beyond those concerning Dionysus emerged

Aeschylus (approx. 524-455 B.C.)
-added second actor
Sophocles (approx. 497-405 B.C.)
-added third actor
-caused the role of the chorus to decrease as number of actors increased

 Dramatists wrote in their spare time (Sophocles was a general)
 Playwrights submitted their works to a jury
 3 day drama festival each year held in honor of Dionysus
 People voted on favorite play by casting stone ballots
 Winning dramatist presented 3 tragedies and a satire, a bawdy parody of the gods & their myths
 Prizes for playwrights – laurel wreaths
 Sophocles won 1st prize at least 20 times

“…the state is the king…”
• Plays produced by the state as a function of the state religion
• Plays presented with the mystery and grandeur of a religious experience
• For the Greeks, all art has a moral purpose/performs a function for the good of the state
• Lessons taught through the tragedies: moderation, piety, importance of the state
• Audience had a civic duty to attend; virtually free admission, familiar themes, audience participation

• Audience sat on the hollowed-out hillside in the open air (theatron)
• Theater in Athens - 17,000 seats
• Audience looked down on a flat round area, at the base of the hill, which was the dancing place of the chorus ( orchestra )
• Before the play, sacrifices were made to the god, Dionysus.
• Behind the orchestra was the dressing room for the actors ( skene ).
• The front of the skene served as the scenery for the play, usually representing the front of a temple or palace; there was no curtain.
• The deus ex machina was a technical feature consisting of a crane on top of the skene from which a dummy representing a god could be suspended.
The god seemingly descended from Mount Olympus and resolved all the play's complications

• Three Main Portions of
Greek Theatre:
• Skene – Portion of stage where actors performed (included 1-3 doors in and out)
• Orchestra – “Dancing
Place” where chorus sang to the audience
• Theatron – Seating for audience

side entrance

I. Prologue – provides background information
II. Parados – entrance of chorus; chorus chants more background; origin of the word parade
III. Episodes – a series of episodes each followed by choral passages
IV. Stasima - choral passages that develop the main action further
V. Exodus – concluding scene; departure of all characters

• Could set mood with poetic songs
• Could represent the common people, the “man in the streets”
• Sometimes sided with one or another character in the drama
• Sometimes warned a character of impending danger
• Sometimes provided, as needed, poetic interludes which suggest passage of time

• Wore larger than life masks, which indicated the nature of the character to the audience
• Made only dignified movements
• No violent action
• No women!

This Greek scholar wrote Poetics in which he expresses his theories concerning Greek tragedy, the most important of which are the following:
• Tragedy is a drama which recounts an important and causally related series of events in the life of a person of significance, such events culminating in an unhappy ending.
• Tragedy arouses the emotions of pity and fear, wonder and awe, and culminates in a catharsis of these emotions.
• A tragic hero must be a man or woman capable of great suffering.
• Tragedy explores the questions of the ways of God (Fate) to man.
• Tragedy shows how man is brought to disaster by a single flaw in his own character.

A. Time (limited to 24-hour period)
B. Place (scene did not change)
C. Action (concentration on one story line at a time: no subplots or diversions)

Hero
• Comes from nobility
• Has a tragic flaw (hamartia) - caused by a simple mistake or a character flaw; may be pride or hubris
• Undergoes a reversal of fortune (peripeteia) falling from high to low
• Has a downfall
• Recognizes his mistakes (anagnorisis) through catharsis or purgation of pity and fear

• experiences a catharsis or purging of emotions
• feels pity for those in the tragedy who suffer misfortune
• has fear that someone like or greater than themselves suffers misfortune
• learns a lesson about the gods, about citizenship, about leadership

Try to keep in mind….

• is ruled by fate and the gods
• is nevertheless dignified
• must accept to his own limitations
• must know that even the innocent suffer
• must accept that self-confidence and wisdom are not enough before divine truth
• will lose when divine and human purposes conflict because the gods are supreme

• occupy the same kind of world as the Greeks themselves
• send suffering and evil
• bring the downfall of the tragic hero
• create constant tension between free will
(men) and necessity (gods and fate)