Greek Tragedy
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508 Athens creates first democratic constitution, but it’s immediately
threatened by two Persian invasions in 490 and 480 BCE (both
successfully repelled).
Great Greek theatre by Aeschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides takes
place after victories against Persia, from 479-404 BCE. Much of it
took place in the great peace between the battles with the Persians
and the Peloponesian war (431-404)
The great series called the Oresteia reflects the newly created Jury
system
Most surviving plays reflect the problems facing a democracy,
especially those that threaten political stability, such as conflicts
between overbearing rulers and popular opinion
Birth of Drama
Drama is thought to come from the
“dithyramb,” and ecstatic choral song
celebrating Dionysus. It had a chorus
of 50 men and 50 boys dancing and
singing.
 This celebration began with a
community processional. The people
carried grotesque masks, sacred
phalluses, and an effigy of Dionysus
dismembered.
 Drama was part of a contest; each
playwright submitted three tragedies
and a satyr play
 Thespis was the legendary “first
actor” who stepped out of the chorus
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Tragedy or “Goat Song”
All men; women were played by men wearing wigs,
masks, and robes
 Traditionally had only two actors playing multiple parts
(projecting in a huge out-door ampitheater was a
difficult skill that required talent and training).
Sophocles is said to have added the third actor;
Aeschylus copies this in Oresteia
 Aristotle would later say a tragedy had a noble (or
moral) hero who made a tragic error (hamartia or
“miss the mark”—an archery term) and whose fall
allowed a community catharsis (purging through pity
and fear). He believed plays should observe the
“unities” of time, place, and action, but playwrights did
not routine observe these rules.
 P.S. Hamartia does not mean “tragic flaw”!
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Tragedies deal with community tensions and
oppositions
Tragedy adapts mythic stories to modern urban ideals
 Apollo represents moderation and enlightenment; Athena
represents wisdom and masculine ideas; she “sides with the men”
 The tragic hero’s new self-knowledge is in tension with urban
moderation; the hero discovers the capacity to feel
 Tragedy plunges us into the “chaotic forces in the human mind,”
exploring incest, matricide, infanticide, and other taboos. Wisdom
comes from suffering.
 Tragedies pit men against women, young against old, god against
human, ancient against modern, powerful against disenfranchised
 Dionysian ritual, assumed by the protagonist, means taking
community suffering on oneself to save the community
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The Tragic Universe
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Gods no longer speak
directly, but through riddles
No narrative voice
Chorus has limited
knowledge; reacts without
narrating
Reasons for tragic
reversals (peripeteia) are
not clear
Protagonist has unusual
capacity to feel deeply
The House of Atreus
Oresteia first produced 458
BCE
 Examines the causes of
Agamemnon’s death at
Clytemnestra’s hands and
the moral dilemma of his
son; sets story in modern
democracy
 Looks at dark family history
of family
Thyestes
rapes own
daughter
to have
Aegisthus
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• Curse of the house of Atreus: Tantalus
kills his own son and serves him to gods
to test their omniscience
• Thyestes sleeps with Atreus’s wife;
Atreus in turn kills Thyestes’ children
and feeds them to him at a banquet
• Agamemnon sacrifices Clytemnestra’s
favorite daughter to sail to Troy
• Cassandra is innocent victim of
Agamemnon; war prize raided from
temple
• Cassandra has the curse of not being
belived (she rebuffed Apollo)
The Chorus in Oresteia
In Agamemnon, the chorus is men
too old to go to Troy. They feebly
protest Clytemnestra’s attitude and
look on passively
 In Libation Bearers, the chorus are
slave women hired by
Clytemnestra to bring ritual
offerings to Agamnon’s tomb to
appease his ghost
 In Eumenides, the chorus consists
of Furies (Erinyes). They represent
the old goddess cult (chthonic)
and resist the new sky god
(ouranic). They represent primitive
ideas of justice, violence, and
gender.
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