Greek Tragedy!

The word "tragedy" comes from Greek language meaning "goat song". The first tragedies dotate from the 5th century BC. There, in Greece, such amazing personalities as Homer, Aristotle, Aeschylus, Sophocles and Euripides created the first tragedies for the religious festival in the honour of the vine God Dionysus. The tragedies were created for actors followed by a chorus. There was always a protagonist, a main character, a hero who was supposed to suffer either because his values were to pure and noble, or because his actions were meant to be judged by the Gods. The tragedies, that started as being festival rituals, kept the noble, deep, mean full and at the same time passionate character of the ancient celebrations. The Greek tragedies were always full of very deep meditational sequences, evocating the deepest human or national problems, crimes, miserable moments and extreme emotional shifts.
Before Aeschylus, the oldest of the ancient Greek tragedy writers and also considered the father of tragedy, the plays were very primitive, because the presence of only one actor didn’t allow the poet to fully express the thoughts, situations, battle of ideas, the atmosphere of the plot itself. Aeschylus was the first to introduce the second actor, which lead to a complete change in the play itself, because it balanced the roles of the chorus and the roles of the protagonists. The records found in ancient Greece state that Aeschylus wrote around 72 to 90 tragedies, but only 7 of them were passed to the modern society. During his lifetime Aeschylus won the prize for the best tragedy writer 13 times, and his plays were allowed to be performed repeatedly in the theatres. All of his tragedies except for “The Persians” are based on myths of Gods and heroes, in which he includes the beliefs of his time, the ideas and the main problems that were faced by the society during that period of time, evocating the patriot feelings, the hatred for tyranny and violence, the idea that good always wins over evil. The difference between him and his successors Sophocles and Euripides (the second and the third great tragedians in ancient Greece) is that their protagonists are no longer titans or mythical creatures, they are merely human that bring forth the pity of the audience as they appear devastated, incapable and sometimes doomed to obey their destiny. Sophocles and Euripides create their characters being influenced by the myths of Gods and Heroes as well, but this time they create more physiological and not as much situation dramas. This totally new types of tragedies bring forth more of a human feelings involving family and society problems, sentiments as devastating sorrow, urge to get the revenge, love, hatred (as in the “Oedipus the King” tragedy by Sophocles). Some of them even focus on democratic values and ideas such as freedom, human rights, hatred towards slavery, justice and peace.

Some of the main characteristics of the Greek tragedy would be the following:

1. Usually the presence of a fixed structure that includes prologue, parodos, first episode, first stasimon, second episode, second stasimon, third episode, third stasimon, fourth episode, fourth stasimon, and exodus.
2. The presence of a protagonist (main character) by which the tragedy was usually named(ex. Oedipus-Oedipus the King, Medea- Medea,) whose destiny was presented to the audience by such means as monologues, dialogues, prologues or descriptions that were sung by the chorus.
3. All the tragedies were based on either myths about Gods and heroes, or beliefs. The plays were related to the political world as well, evocating the political structures of the time (ex. “The Persians”-Aeschylus. In this tragedy the poet criticizes the monarchic structure favouring a democracy)
4. The protagonists don’t necessarily die, but all of them undergo a change of fortune. Their downfall is created by either fate, will of Gods or nature. (ex. Prometheus Bound- Aeschylus. In this tragedy we can see all the 3 downfalls mentioned above. The fate is seen in Prometheus prediction that the sea nymph Thetis will give birth to Achilles, a son greater than the father. God will is identified in Zeus bounding Prometheus as a punishment for bringing the fire into the human world. The eagle that devours Prometheus’ liver everyday is an example of a natural downfall which dramatizes and bring forth terrible suffering).

The ancient Greek tragedies played an enormous role in the development of the classical and modern literature, creating a base not only for the dramatic plays created for that specific period of time. I consider that reading ancient tragedies is very important, not only because I find them interesting, but also because they develop my general culture. Although I am accustomed with the theatre performances, I find them a little bit hard to understand especially in a foreign language, that is why I consider necessary reading the tragedy first. By doing this, we will not only get a better understanding of the plot, but also we will be able to compare our way of imagining the character and the way the actor or actress performed the role. It will also help us better understand the psychological drama of the characters. And beyond this, I've always found it interesting the way ancient people blamed everything on Gods will or fate. This are the reasons I consider that we should read the tragedy first, before seeing it performed.

Links: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aeschylus

http://ablemedia.com/ctcweb/netshots/tragedy.htm

http://www.deathreference.com/Gi-Ho/Greek-Tragedy.html

The majority of my ideas are formulated as the result of translating comments from a Russian book “Literature and Art” Minsk, 1995, ‘Too Harvest.