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GREEK THEATER AND MEDEA
TRAGEDIES •  Began with festivals
that honored their
gods. Dionysus in
particular – “City
Dionysia” in Athens. THREE TYPES OF PLAYS
PERFORMED
•  Comedy – contemporary figures and problems
- happy ending
- performed only once in competition type atmosphere
•  Tragedy – means “goat song” (perhaps referring to goats
sacrificed for the festivals)
- mystic past
- main character suffers downfall
- main character is usually royalty
- tragic flaw: part of their character that leads to the downfall
•  Satire – mythological subject handled in comedic manner
GREEK THEATER
•  All actors were men.
•  Used masks – expression (mournful,
smiling, leering), acoustics, character
differentiation. •  The Chorus – group of actors who moved
and sang together – acted as one
character and spoke in unison. Sets the
mood, summarizes action, represents point
of view, sides with various characters, and
warns of disasters.
GREEK THEATER (CONTINUED)
•  Incorporated units of time, place, and action,
which meant that there was no scene change,
and no complicated subplots; the play took
place in one day and in one place and focused
on one event. •  Violent action took place offstage; messengers
told the audience what happened. •  Audience knew the story ahead of time. The
emotion of the character is what they came
to see. GREEK THEATER TERMINOLOGY
•  Orchestra: “dancing space”
- circular
- area where chorus could dance and sing and interact
with actors on stage near the skene
•  Theatron: “viewing space”
- part of the hill side, wrapped around the orchestra
•  Skene: “tent”
- directly behind the stage
- usually decorated like a palace, temple, or other building
- had at least one set of doors
- access to roof
•  Parados: “passageways”
- used by chorus and actors to make entrances and exits
EURIPIDES AND HIS TIME
(484—406? B.C.)
•  Euripides wrote during a time
when the Greek city-state of
Athens was the center of the
civilized world.
•  Athenians believed barbarians
populated the rest of the
world. (When people today
discuss the Greek ideal, they
refer to ideas and traits
valued by the Athenians—
reason over passion, order and
discipline over chaos, and civic
duty and community over
individual goals and desires. THE PLAYWRIGHT AND HIS TIME
•  Athenians were disgusted by expressions of
excessive emotion or passion; they considered
irrational behavior a threat to the social
order. •  Euripides’ plays were not always well received
by the ancient Athenians, as he strayed from
their ideal. He shunned public service,
perhaps even lived alone in a cave, and wrote
plays that featured deeply flawed characters. THE PLAYWRIGHT AND HIS TIME
(CONTINUED)
•  It is important to know, too, that during
Euripides’ lifetime, Greece entered into the
Peloponnesian Wars. These wars between
Athens and Sparta lasted for three decades
(431—404 B.C.) and eventually led to the
downfall of Greek civilization. War and human
passion won out over rational civilization.
Euripides’ plays reflected that reality, which
is why Athenians were wary of his works and
modern audiences continue to read them. LITERARY TERMS
•  TRAGIC HEROES – Characters whose fatal flaw or frailty is the
key to their undoing. The lessons they learn alter them forever.
Tragic heroes serve as symbols that provide audiences with a
chance to experience a sort of moral cleansing. They suffer so
the audiences don’t have to. •  ARCHETYPAL CHARACTERS – Characters who embody universal
human traits and thus transcend the culturally specific events
of their stories. For example, the archetype of the innocent
young hero taking a quest and being mentored along the way is
found in everything from ancient myths and fairy tales to
contemporary films like Star Wars. A reader can easily picture
an archetypal character coming to live in an entirely different
setting and plot. MEDEA BY EURIPIDES
•  When Medea was first presented in 431 B.C. along
with the other dramas at Dionysia, the Athenian
festival celebrating the god Dionysus, it came in dead
last in the popular vote.
•  Critics generally consider Medea an archetypal
character rather than a tragic hero. She does not
learn anything about herself. In fact, she is just as
self-righteous at the end of the play as at the
beginning. Medea is the archetype of jealous passion.
We don’t identify with her type so much as we hope
to avoid it. MEDEA (CONTINUED)
•  The mythical Medea was the: daughter
of the king of Colchis, niece of the
sorceress Circe, and granddaughter of
the sun gold Helios. •  Although not a Greek, she was a
powerful and passionate woman who
entered Greek mythology through her
association with Jason, one of ancient
Greece’s greatest heroes.