Greek Theatre Context
Genres and Playwrights
Tragedy
- Birth of Drama in Athens started c. 6th Century BC and the first recorded contest at the City Dionysia was in
534 BC.
- Aristotle’s Poetics
o Good for understanding tragedy but may not reflect the views of Aeschylus, Euripides and Sophocles’
audience as it was written a century later.
o To Aristotle, a tragic hero should be someone of high status who makes a mistake, otherwise known as
hamartia.
o Aristotle hoped that watching tragedy would give spectators a catharsis from their fear and pity.
o Aristotle argues that the best tragic play has a single complex plotline with three key elements:
Suffering, Recognition, Reversal.
He believed Oedipus was best at this.
- Structure
o Usually begins with a prologue, followed by a parados, then three or more episodes interspersed with
stasima (choral interludes explaining or commenting on the situation developing in the play)
Some plays do not adhere to this conventional structure like Aeschylus’ Seven Against Thebes
which has no prologue.
- In its original context tragedy shows little interest in analysing why a character behaves in a particular way,
although modern interpretations favours psycho-analysis of characters.
- Successful Tragedy:
o Both Oedipus and Bacchae produce catharsis in the audeince.
o Both teach the audience – dangers of tyranny, dangers of hybris.
Oedipus also deals with the uncertainty of life.
o Both plays also have a tragic ‘hero’ with a hamartia, peripeteia, and an anagnorisis
o Both plays use a variety of tragic techniques (dramatic irony, messenger speeches, choral odes).
o Both plays have striking visual elements (costumes like the Bacchants in Bacchae or the body of
Pentheus and blind Oedipus)
Aeschylus (“the father of tragedy”)
- 525-456 BC
o Wealthy and well established family – his father, Euphorian, was probably a member of the ancient
nobility of Attica (although this may have been a fiction invented to account for the grandeur of
Aeschylus’ plays).
- 6 of his plays survive – though he may have written as many as 90.
- Additions:
o Credited by Aristotle with introducing a second actor (formerly, characters only interacted with the
chorus), also credited with inventing the trilogy.
- Typicalities:
o Specialised in trilogies or tetralogies (e.g., the Oresteia)
o Aeschylus remained faithful to a very strict morality and intense religiosity:
In Aeschylus, with the exception of Prometheus Bound, Zeus always has the role of ethical
thinking and action.
Some scholars think his son Euphorion may have wrote Prometheus Bound.
- Influenced by context:
o At least one of his works (The Perisans) was influenced by the Persians’ second invasion of Greece
(480-479 BC).
Aeschylus’ epitaph commemorates his participation in the Greek victory at Marathon while
making no mention of his success as a playwright.
- Success:
o With the exception of Prometheus Bound, all of Aeschylus’ extant tragedies are known to have won
first prize at the City Dionysia.
o Aeschylus’ work was so respected that after his death his tragedies were the only ones allowed to be
restaged in subsequent competitions.
- Presentation in Frogs:
o Claims that his Seven against Thebes made “everyone watching it to love being warlike”
, o Claims that his The Persians “taught the Athenians to desire always to defeat their enemies.”
Sophocles
- 496-406 BC
o Born to a wealthy family (his father was an armour manufacturer) and was highly educated.
o Sophocles served as one of the Hellenotamiai (treasurers of Athena) helping to manage the finances of
the city during the political ascendancy of Pericles.
441 BC – elected one of the 10 generals and served in the Athenian campaign against Samos.
- Additions:
o Attributed with the addition of a 3rd Actor
o Sophocles is attributed with increasing the number of chorus members from 12 to 15 (although he
reduced the role of the chorus compared to Aeschylus).
o Some attribute with the introduction of scenery-painting.
- Success:
o One of the most celebrated playwrights in the dramatic competitions of the city-state of Athens
Competed in 30 competitions, won at least 18 City Dionysia competitions (and 6 Lenaia) and
never came third.
Aeschylus won 13 and was sometimes defeated by Sophocles. Euripides won 4.
o His reputation was such that foreign rulers invited him to attend their courts but, unlike Aeschylus
who died in Sicily, or Euripides who spent time in Macedon, Sophocles never accepted any of these
invitations.
o Aristotle in his Poetics (c. 335 BC) used Sophocles’ Oedipus Rex as an example of the highest
achievement in Tragedy.
Euripides
- 480-406 BC
- Additions:
o Turned the prologue into a monologue informing the spectators of the story’s background.
- Typicalities:
o Distinguished from other playwrights by an increased attention for feelings.
Uses female protagonists in Andromache, Phaedra and Medea, to portray the tormented
sensitivity and irrational impulses that collide with the world of reason.
- Success:
o More popular in death than in life.
- Presentation in Frogs:
o Presented in Frogs as an unconventional playwright who liked to shock audiences (e.g., Previous
Medea stories probably didn’t end with Medea killing her children) but he could not have been too
radical or unpopular as he was regularly presented at the CD.
Aristophanes scripted him as a character in The Archanians, Thesmophoriazusae and The Frogs.
Comedy
- First recorded entry for a comedy in the City Dionysia was in 486 BC.
- Humour:
o Comic language was more down-to-earth but still bore little relation to how ordinary Greeks spoke.
o Self-mocking theatre – parodying of tragedy is a key aspect of Old Comedy
o Political theatre – Aristophanes mocks those who prey on the gullibility of their fellow citizens,
including oracle-mongers in Knights and Birds.
- Successful Comedy:
o Spectacle and political comments
Frogs was uniquely performed twice due to its parabasis and political comments.
o Aristotle wrote in his Poetics that comedy is a representation of laughable people and involves some
kind of blunder or ugliness which does not cause pain or disaster.
- New Comedy:
o New Comedy emerged by 320 BC.
Adapted Comedy to the portrayal of everyday life rather than of public affairs, increasingly
abandoning the satirical and farcical elements of Aristophanes’ comedies.
Apart from Diphilus, New Comedians preferred the everyday world to mythological themes
