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Greek Theater, Tragedy
Ritual, Performative Realities
Aristotle’s Poetics
Agenda
• Origins of Drama
– Phallic Procession, Komasts, etc.
• Athenian Dramatic Festivals
– Ritualized Secularism
• Drama: Production Elements
• Aristotle’s Poetics
– Drama Explained?
– Antigone via Aristotle
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Origins of Drama
“Goat-Song,” Phallic Procession,
Komasts, etc.
Aristotle on Origins
• ethnic-geographical
• psychological-anthropological
• Dionysian-ritual
Aristotle
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Cultic Parallels-Precursors
• Komos
– (Dionysian) revel
» (also term for dramatic
production)
• Phallic procession
– Dionysian phallus pole
on parade
Komasts: archaic Corinthian vase
Procession of the Phallus Pole
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Dionysus
Hephaestus
padded, phallic
costume
Proto-Drama (?): komos-like Performance of the Return of Hephaestus
Protocorinthian vase painting , 600-575 BCE
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Athenian Dramatic Festivals
Ritualized Secularism
Historical-Political Sketch
• Archaic Greek tyranny (600s-500s BCE)
– democratizing despotism
– Dionysian reorganization
• Athens
– Pisistratus (r. 561-572 BCE) & City/Greater
Dionysia
› 1st tragedies ca. 534 BCE
– Democratic developments, 511› 1st comedies 486 BCE
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Athenian Dionysia
• Rural Dionysia (Dec.)
• Lenaea (late Jan/Feb)
– 440/430 dramatic
competition instituted
• Anthisteria (Feb)
• City/Greater Dionysia
(late March)
Dionysus
– principal dramatic festival
at Athens
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Greater Dionysia: Program
• 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
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Tragedy: Ritualized Secularism
• Dual Focus (Barlow)
– ancient, mythic, heroic,
archetypal
– contemporary, political,
communal, skeptical
• Ambivalent affirmation
– Vernant
– Hall
Theater at Epidaurus
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Theater
Viewing/Performing Space
N
Parthenon
Roman Theater
Acropolis with Theaters
Theater of
Dionysus
Basic Design: Theater of Dionysus ca. 420 BCE
wooden bleachers
theatron (“viewing place,”
auditorium, theater)
stone seats (dignitaries)
orkhēstra
(“dancing space” for
chorus)
altar
entry (parodos, eisodos)
kerkis (“wedge”
seating section)
entry (parodos, eisodos)
steps
low wooden stage
with skene (from ca.
420 BCE)
skene (stage building)
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Drama: Production Elements
Tragic chorus, masked, dancing, singing (ancient vase)
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Satyr choreuts (chorus members)
Coryphaeus (chorus leader)
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Playwright Demetrius
Dionysus and Ariadne
Queen-character
Himeros (= Eros)
Pronomos (piper)
Heracles
Charinus (kithara player)
(Pappo)silenos
King-character
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Human, Other Resources
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.
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Tragedy: Structure & Elements
•
prologue
•
– portion preceding parodos
•
parodos
– chorus entry
•
•
stasima (sing. stasimon)
– major choral numbers (not
including parodos)
•
– portion following last
stasimon
•
kommos
stichomythia
– rapid back-and-forth
dialogue
episodes
– segments between major
choral numberrs
exodos
•
agōn
– debate scene
•
messenger speeches
– description of off-stage
action
– lamentation scenes (choruscharacter sung dialogue)
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Aristotle’s Poetics
Drama Explained?
Antigone via Aristotle
Poetics: Approach
Method
• definition
• classification
• analysis
• teleology
• critical evaluation
Critical foci
• organic coherence
• plausibility / realism
• emotional power
• utility / enjoyment
– therapeutic value
– educational value
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Poetics: Critical Vocabulary
• Plot, muthos
– simple
– complex
– episodic
– anagnorisis
– peripeteia
– hamartia
– complication /
reversal
• Ethical component
– ethos-“temperament”
– thought
– hamartia
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Antigone via Aristotle (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?
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Antigone via Aristotle??
• 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
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Aristotle on Tragedy
“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)
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