Classics 095: Greek Tragedy

General Background Information

The word 'tragedy' was taken into English from Old French, 'tragedie,' which was taken into French from Latin 'tragedia,' which was taken into Latin from Greek 'tragodia.' The Greek word is made of two elements: tragos "goat" and oide  "song," which makes 'tragedy' a 'goat song.'

Why 'goat song'? Possible explanations (we do not know for certain):

• Because tragedy evolved from 'satyric drama,' which was poetry performed by people dressed as satyrs (half-man, half-goat).
• Because the prize in tragic competition was at some time a goat.
• A goat was sacrificed to Dionysus at the performances.
  
• Perhaps for some unknown reason that has nothing to do with goats (some scholars have questioned the hircine connection).

Who was Thespis?

• A 6th century BCE figure
• First person to create a performance with an actor in addition to the chorus
  
• He modified an earlier form of poetry called a 'dithyramb' (which had a chorus and chorus leader)
• The actor was called a 'hypocrite' ('responder')
• That actor, according to Aristotle, played various individual characters by aid of a mask

What was the City Dionysia Festival?

• According to legend, the first one was in 534 BCE: it was a competition to find the best tragedy, and Thespis won that first one.
• Occurred at the end of our month of February or the end of March???? (someone clear this up for us): when the grape juice had fermented into wine.
• Run by city officials and prominent citizens and their wives.
• Three days of tragedies, one apiece for three authors. Each day consisted of a trilogy of tragedies plus a satyr play.
• Performed in the theatre of Dionysus in Athens on the south side of the Acropolis.

Who was Dionysus?

• A god.
• Son of Semele and Zeus. Semele was killed while pregnant, and Zeus took Dionysus out of her womb and sewed him into his thight to finish him.
• Visible signs that a figure is Dionysus: grape vines, thyrsus (a kind of staff with a sort of pine-cone like thing on the top), a leopard skin, a beard, a panther

The Actors

• All male
• When Thespis invented drama, there was one actor, who would play multiple characters
• By Euripides' time, there were three actors, each of whom could play multiple characters.
• Wore masks that covered their entire head.
• Wore elaborate costumes, embroidered, often with close-fitting sleeves.
• Sometimes wore kothurnoi (calf-high lace-up sandals)

Termini Technici of Tragedy

• hubris: excessive pride or self-confidence: arrogance, violence.
• A paradigmatic act of hubris is rape (although it seems OK for Zeus or other gods, but humans can't)
  
• anagnorisis:  the critical moment of recognition or discovery, esp. preceding peripety
  
• peripety (aka peripeteia): reversal of fortune in a literary work
  
• stasimon: a choral ode, esp. in tragedy, divided into strophe and antistrophe: usually alternating with episodes or parodos or exodos
  
• parodos (two meanings)
• the entranceways on either side of the Greek theatre leading into the orchestra and skene
• an ode sung by the chorus during their entrance, usually beginning the play.
  
• exodos: the final scene or departure, especially in tragedy and Old Comedy.
  
• strophe:  the part of an ancient Greek choral ode sung by the chorus when moving from right to left
  
• antistrophe: the part of an ancient Greek choral ode answering a strophe and sung by the chorus when moving from left to right
  
• stichomythia: dramatic dialogue, as in a Greek play, characterized by brief exchanges between two characters, who usually alternate speaking one line of verse apiece during a scene of intense emotion or strong argumentation.
  
• hamartia: tragic flaw
  
• choregos/choregus:
  
• the leader of a dramatic chorus
• a person who undertook the expense of providing such a chorus
  
• ode:
  
• a choric song of Classical Greece, often accompanied by a dance and performed at a public festival or as part of a drama
• odes usually have strophes, antistrophes, and an epode
  
• ekkuklyma
• deus ex machina: a god introduced into a play to resolve the entanglements of the plot
  
• skene: the part of the ancient theatre facing the audience and forming the background before which the performances occurred
  
• orchestra: the circular space in from of the ancient stage allotted to the chorus
  
• ate: an ancient Greek goddess personifying the fatal blindness or recklessness that produces crime and the divine punishment that follows it
  
• episode: the part of an ancient play that occurs between the stasima and contains the action of the drama. There are typically three to six episodes
• didaskalos: a didaskalos was the director of a tragedy. Sometimes the writer was not the didaskalos, but usually he was.
  

Syllabus to B McManus' Tragedy Course: good material