Notes on Ancient Greek Theatre

1. Poetics, Playwrights and Comedy

2. Aristotle
 Aristotle was a
philosopher and critic;
wrote nearly 100
years after the golden
age of Greek theatre
 The Poetics, dramatic
criticism written in 335
BCE, were a series of
notes that we still use
today to define theatre

3. The Three Unities
 The most famous of the Aristotelian
rules were those relating to the unities:
 Time - the supposed action of the play is
limited in the duration to, roughly, that of a
single day
 Place – limits to location to one general
locality
 Action - limits the plot to a single set of
incidents which are related as cause and
effect

4. On the Unity of Place:
 Perhaps tacitly he assumed that the
observance of the unity of place would
be the practice of good playwrights,
since the chorus was present during the
whole performance, and it would indeed
be awkward always to devise an excuse
for moving fifteen persons about from
place to place.
Martha Fletcher Bellinger, A Short History of the
Drama

5. The Six Elements of Drama
 Plot: the arrangement of dramatic
incidents
 Characters: the people represented in
the play
 Thought or theme: the ideas explored
 Language: the dialogue and poetry
 Music
 Spectacle: scenery and other visual
elements

6. Oedipus – the Ultimate Greek
Tragedy
 Aristotle felt that
Sophocle’s play
Oedipus was the best
example of tragedy
because of:
 the excellent
management of plot and
chorus
 the beauty of the
language
 the irony of the
situations
 the general nobility of
conception

7. Satyr Plays
 Comical play involving a chorus of
satyrs (mythological creatures who were
half goat, half man)
 Parodied the myths presented in dramas
 Posed fun at honored Greek
institutions, such as religion and heroes
 Often included vulgarity

8. Old Comedy
 Do not follow the rules
of climactic drama
 Comedies make fun of
society, politics or
culture
 Frequently, the
characters of
comedies were
recognizable
contemporary
personalities

9. Aristophanes
 The only Old
Comedies that survive
today are by
Aristophanes
 Used fantastical and
improbable plots to
underline its satire
 Employs a chorus with
two unique elements:
 Agon: a scene with a
debate between two
opposing forces
 Parabasis: where
chorus speaks directly
to audience
Lysistrata

10. Playwrights
Aeschylus
 The Father of Tragedy
 Introduced the
Second Actor
 Wrote over ninety
plays, only seven
have survived
 Most famous plays
include Prometheus
Bound and the
Oresteian Trilogy

11. Sophocles
 Took first prize in his
first City of Dionysia
competetion
 Accomplished actor;
performed in many
of his shows
 Added the third
actor
 Famous works
include Oedipus the
King and Antigone

12. Euripedes
 Considered a
misunderstood poet
 Although he wrote 92
plays, was ignored by
the judges of the
Greek festival
because he did not
cater to Athenian
crowd
 The forerunner of the
modern psychological
dramatist

13. Euripedes (cont.)
 Forced his characters to confront
personal issues
 Most famous plays include:
 The Bacchae
 Medea
 Trojan Women

14. Aristophanes
 Famous for his
comedies
 His first surviving
play, The
Acharnians,is the
world's first anti-war
comedy
 In he play The
Clouds, he skewers
famous philosopher
Socrates

15. Aristophanes (Cont.)
 Favorite target was Euripedes
 Wrote Lysistrata twenty-one years into
the Peloponnesian War
 Although the play is light-hearted, it was
written out of the poet's grief over the
thousands of Athenians who had
recently lost their lives in the terrible
defeat at Syracuse