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Greek Drama

INTRODUCTION TO TRAGEDY

Tragedy was a phenomenon of Athens, Greece, in the fifth century B.C.

• 490 B.C. Persia was defeated at Marathon. This began golden era of democracy & building, as well as flowering of tragedy
• 404 B.C. Athens surrendered to Sparta, ending the era (McCall 12).

At the Dionysian festival, Athens would have competition for best tragedies.. "In nearly every instance the centre of these festivals lay in extravagant sexual licentiousness, the waves of which overwhelmed all family life and its venerable traditions; the very wildest beasts of nature were let loose here, including that detestable mixture of lust and cruelty which has always seemed to me the genuine 'witches' draught'" (Nietzsche, Birth 30).

Tragedy grew out of songs sung @ Dionysian festival. Started having people act out the songs. Remained musical in form--Words sung rather than spoken.

The Dithyramb was the type of lyric used in Tragedy. 

"Gr. Antiq. A Greek choric hymn, originally in honour of Dionysus or Bacchus, vehement and wild in character; a Bacchanalian song" (Oxford English Dictionary).

 The dithyramb was sung with flutes. The chorus sang songs about Dionysus & other myths. True drama began when Thespis went out in front of the chorus to play the role of a character.

Rules of tragedy. (McCall 14-15)

1. Length. 1,100-1,700 lines. Took less than 2 hours. Thus few characters, focus on one crisis.
   
2. Chorus present.
   
1. Sings about the action
   
2. Plays some part in the play--a suitable general role. Not an impersonal group.
   
3. Provides continuity. Present from beginning to end. Everything happens against the backdrop of the chorus.
3. Characters not as personal is in Shakespeare (Hamlet vs Orestes). Aristotle--tragedy is universal. They want to show what can happen to anybody. Focus on human destiny. Mask emphasized this. Focus is an what characters do, not who they are, on destinies, not personalities. 

According to Friedrich Nietzsche in The Birth of Tragedy, Apollo and Dionysus were the two deities of art in Greece. Apollo was the patron of plastic arts (sculpture, etc., and Dionysus of music. Apollo established the principium individuationis (the principle of individuation); Dionysus dissolved that principle in his ecstasies, resulting in a primordial unity. Apollo gave intuition (Anschauung) through dreams; Dionysus gave ecstasy (Entzückung) through drunkenness (Geburt 25-26, 28-29, 84, 103-104). Later tragedy, under the influence of Socrates and Euripides, replaced Apollonian intuition with thought and Dionysian ecstasy with passion (83-84). Tragedy combines the Dionysian music with the Apollonian visual. The Dionysian group with the Apollonian individual. The noble man does not sin, . . . through his action all law, all natural order, yes, the moral world may fall to the ground, but through this action a higher magic circle will be drawn from its effects, a new world founded from the Ruins of the overthrown old one (Nietzsche, Geburt 65).

 AESCHYLUS

Dates: Born 525/524 B.C. Died 456/455 B.C.

Aeschyus fought at the Battle of Marathon when he was 35 years old & at Salamis in the Persian War (Podlecki 4). Aeschylus started writing circa 500 B.C. Won his first victory in 484 (Podlecki 5). Aeschylus died when an eagle dropped a tortoise on his head. His epithet said he was a soldier at Marathon, with nothing about his writing.

INTRODUCTION TO PROMETHEUS BOUND

Date: 457/456 B.C. It was his last trilogy (Podlecki 110).

The Romantics felt drawn to the figures of Aeschylus' Prometheus and Milton's Satan, those defiers of divine will and purveyors of proscribed knowledge. By their willful exercise of power and distribution of knowledge, they establish their status as heroic criminals. Nor were they heroes in spite of their crimes; it was their crimes that made them heroes. The "innermost kernel of the Prometheus myth" (innersten Kern der Prometheussage) is "the necessity of crime impelling the titanically striving individual" (die dem titanisch strebenden Individuum gebotene Nothwendigkeit des Frevels) (Nietzsche, Geburd der Tragödie 70).

Prometheus is the mythic figure who best suits the uses of Romantic poetry, for no other traditional being has in him the full range of Romantic moral sensibility and the full Romantic capacity for creation and destruction. (Bloom 120)

Problem of play: Zeus has no redeeming traits (Podlecki 101).

• The play is directed not against one tyrant but against tyranny (Podlecki 111).
• 510 B.C. Athens banished tyrant Hippias. Democracy started (Podlecki 116).
• 490 B.C.Persians invade to Greece. They are accompanied by Hippias. Aeschylus fought at Marathon (Podlecki 117).

Here Zeus is a tyrant. Kratos and Bia (Force and Might) are thugs, a δορυφόρος doruphoros (bodyguard to king).

1. Keep subjects humble.
   
2. Make them distrust one another.
   
3. Keep them powerless so they won't try to rebel.

1. Unaccountable to others--no checks & balances.
   
2. Ignores traditional laws. Is above the law.
   
3. Mistrusts those closest to him.
   
4. Violence, esp. against women. ϐία. Io was exiled by Zeus' command in this version (lines 667-668) (Podlecki 106).
   
5. Zeus won't tolerate free speech, others fear to speak freely (line 180) (Podlecki 107).
   
6. Has spies, like Hermes. Big Brother is watching (Podlecki 109).
7. Lops off outstanding people who might cause opposition. Encourages mediocrity (Podlecki 110).
   
8. Surrounds self with flatterers & courtiers. Oceanus is one. both cunning & naive. Thinks he has influence (Podlecki 109).

Herodotus 3. 80-82 discusses three types of government: monarchy, oligarchy, democracy. Aeschylus influences Herodotus, Plato, & Aristotle. Aristotle Politics 5. 8. Tyrant seeks own good only. Tyrant's pride (ὑϐρις, hubris) leads to subjects' wrath (οργη, orge) (Podlecki 118).