Download Oedipus, the King Sophocles

Oedipus, the King
Sophocles
Forms of Greek Drama
Structure
• Prologue
• Parodos (entrance of singing and dancing
chorus)
• Episodes-characters engage one another and
the chorus; the chorus often sings and dances
several odes that emphasize the play’s issues.
Choral odes are written in lyric meters different
than the meters used for characters’ speeches.
• The chorus is representative of the voice of the
people and often becomes a decisive character
in the play.
Structure cont.
• The catastrophe is its literally downturn that
marks a change in the hero’s status.
• The exodos, or departure of the characters from
the stage, usually includes a final song or dance.
The plays of Aristophanes usually include a
parabasis, a choral ode delivered to the
audience discussing political issues. His
comedies also include a final komos, a scene of
dancing and revelry.
Power of Greek Drama
• Intense and economical relationship
between:
• 1. a situation, usually at the point of climax
when the play opens;
• 2. a complex of characters, each with
distinctive goals and motives;
• 3. a chorus used both as a character and
as a commentator on the action
Power of Greek Drama cont.
• 4. a series of incidents precipitate a crisis and bring the
meaning of the protagnoist’s actions into focus.
• Aristotle termed this crisis peripeteia, or reversal. He
argued that it should be accompanied by an act of
anagnorisis, or recognition, in which the character
responds to this change.
• Aristotle asserted that when the pressure of the tragic
action produces a close relationship between the
reversal and the recognition, it instills in the audience
feelings if fear and pity.
• This combination produces catharsis, a purgation of
these emotions.