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Home , The Bacchae

Sophocles’s Rex: Tying it all together

Drama evolved from religious festivals in honor of , the god of wine and changing seasons. was the favorite type of Greek drama for the ancients, and at the heart of all lay a character's hubris (pride that is likely to invoke the wrath of the gods).

When the play was performed in ancient Greece, three actors would rotate to play all the speaking parts accompanied by a 50-man Chorus, a group of people who spoke in unison and who helped explain the story to the audience. The Chorus would have sung and danced the processional as well. The actors would perform the drama in an outdoor theater (amphitheater) to ten thousand of spectators. Actors wore huge masks to help the audience see and understand who was speaking, and the actors would have to project their voice without microphones so that those sitting in the top row of the theater could see and hear.

The First Actor

The earliest origins of drama are to be found in Athens where ancient hymns, called dithyrambs, were sung in honor of the god Dionysus. These hymns were later adapted for choral processions in which participants would dress up in costumes and masks. Eventually, certain members of the chorus evolved to take special roles within the procession, but they were not yet actors in the way we would understand it. That development came later in the 6th century BC, when the tyrant Pisistratus, who then ruled the city, established a series of new public festivals. One of these, the “City ,” a festival of entertainment held in honor of the god Dionysus, featured competitions in music, singing, dance and poetry. And most remarkable of all the winners was said to be a wandering bard called Thespis. According to tradition, in 534 or 535 BC, Thespis astounded audiences by leaping on to the back of a wooden cart and reciting poetry as if he was the characters whose lines he was reading. In doing so he became the world's first actor, and it is from him that we get the world thespian, another name for an actor.

Bored with the same old “protagonist” and Chorus, the playwright Aeschylus added a second speaking role, called the antagonist, and reduced the chorus from 50 to 12. His play The Persians, first performed in 472 BC, is the oldest surviving of all Greek plays. His pupil Sophocles went on to add a third actor, while added both a prologue, introducing the subject of the play, and the deus ex machina (pronounced day-oos eks mok-ee-na—literally translated God in the Machine) a divine figure who would descend from the “sky” and would wrap up any loose ends at the close of the play. In modern times, the deus ex machine appears in a variety of films; most notably, at the end of Jurassic Park , the humans left (2 adults, 2 children) face eminent death by velociraptors in the heart of the theme park’s main building. Much to their surprise (and the audience’s), the T-Rex barges in and saves the day. This is deus ex machina at work! Often times, using the deus ex machina cheapens the ending of a film or book, leaving the audience with a feeling that the writer/filmmaker used a lazy plot device to end the film.

Wealthy citizens would sponsor plays by paying a tax called the choregia. And just like Pisistratus, the tyrant who established the 'City Dionysia' to enhance his own popularity, many of these wealthy patrons hoped the success of the play they sponsored would provide them with a way into politics. The first plays were performed in the , built in the shadow of the Acropolis in Athens at the beginning of the 5th century, but theatres proved to be so popular they soon spread all over Greece. Here is a great YouTube video that explains the early theater: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vNAM3PzGcow.

Drama was classified according to three different types or genres: comedy, tragedy and satyr plays; The most successful playwright in ancient Greece was Aeschylus, the father of . He died in 456 BC. He left a number of important plays that still survive today, including The Persians and The Oresteia. His mantle was taken up by the arguable best playwright, Sophocles, who wrote Antigone, , and . One additional famous Greek playwright was Euripides, who wrote The Trojan Trilogy, of which only survives, as well as two other important plays about the roles of women: The Phoenician Women and The Bacchae. The leading comic author of Athens, , did not produce his first play until 427 BC. He specialized in what we would call political satire, and of his eleven surviving plays Lysistrata, The Acharnians, and The Clouds are the most famous.

Aristotle and the Definition of Tragedy

The first critical study of the tragedy is contained in the book Poetics of Aristotle, and philosopher. He writes in Poetics: "The tragedy is, therefore, in imitation of a noble and complete action [...] which means the compassion and afraid results in the purification from these passions.” In other words, the terrible events that follow one another on stage cause the audience to empathize, and by empathizing with the tragic hero through his emotions (drama), they, in turn, condemn the wickedness or vice through the hubris. The anagnorisis occurs at the moment in a play when a character makes a critical discovery. It is the protagonist’s sudden awareness of his situation, the realization of things as they stood, and finally, the protagonist’s insight into a relationship with an antagonist (in Oedipus’s case—the curse of the gods). The nemesis is the final "pay" for the crimes--punishment in the individual who raises his own feelings of pity and terror that allow the soul to purify itself from these negative passions that every man possesses. The peripeteia occurs when the protagonist undergoes a reversal of circumstances, or turning point. The final catharsis for Aristotle is the consciousness of the viewer. The character reaches this final awareness by detaching from his passions in order to achieve a higher level of wisdom. Vice or weakness of character (tragic flaw) necessarily leads to his downfall and is predestined (chaining of actions seems to be somewhat favored by the gods, who do not act directly, but have the ultimate say). The fall of the tragic hero is needed because on the one hand, we can admire its enormity (it is almost always of people famous and powerful), and the audience can capitalize on the story.

The Unities

What makes great tragedy great is also technical. Aristotelian unities are time, place and action. Aristotle asserted a tragedy must be complete and perfect, in other words, must have unity (i.e., a beginning, a middle, and an end). The philosopher differentiated that the action of the epic and the tragedy differ in length "because the tragedy has made every effort to take place in a revolution of the sun or so while the epic is unlimited in time."The three units will, therefore, refer to the unit of time (the story takes place in a day), theme (one main theme) and space (one place only, in fact, the scene at the time of the three great tragedians was static usually occurring in the confines of the king’s palace). These units were considered key elements of the theatre until about five centuries ago (Shakespeare’s tragedies, written in the 1500s, take place over several days or months, have several settings, and touch on a variety of themes). The first plays were performed with just one actor (called a protagonist) and a chorus of people who helped him to tell the story. However, throughout the 5th century BC playwrights continued to innovate.

Answer the following based on the information presented above, the discussions we’ve had during class, and the content from the play (Oedipus Rex).

1. According to class lecture (and powerpoint), founded what ancient city? What did he do with the teeth of the snake/dragon that he killed? What happened as a result?

2. Oedipus Rex opens ______, or in the middle of things. What, exactly, is going on when the play opens?

3. Find a line from the beginning of the play that shows Oedipus’s hubris (tragic flaw):

4. Oedipus sent ______to Delphi in order to find out what was causing the plague and famine. What was the answer he brought back?

5. Find an example of dramatic irony from the beginning of the play that deals with Oedipus and his pride (Hint: it’s what the person from #5 finds out and explains to Oedipus that brings about Oedipus’s reacting, thus the irony).

6. When isn’t forthcoming with his knowledge about Oedipus’s true identity, is he trying to protect Oedipus or himself? Explain your answer by demonstrating deep understanding of the complexities of this play.

7. How does refute Oedipus’s claims of treason?

8. Find an example where the audience knows something about Oedipus that Jocasta doesn’t know, and she makes a blasphemous statement because of her ignorance (hence: dramatic irony):

9. The messenger from Corinth is bringing news that is meant to bring happiness (tinged with a bit of sadness) to Oedipus. Once he tells that King Polybus has died, Oedipus is relieved. This relief, however, is short-lived because the messenger then divulges that Oedipus wasn’t Polybus’s true son. What type of irony is present here? Dramatic? Situation? Or verbal? Explain your answer:

10. Find the line where Jocasta begins to suspect the truth of Oedipus’s true identity.

11. Aristotle believed Oedipus Rex to be the finest of all tragedies because the protagonist's peripeteia . Where exactly does this occur? Write the line(s):

12. After his anagnorisis, how does Oedipus find his wife/mother, and what is his response? Why is this scene particularly engaging to the audience, and how is this scene part of the nemesis?

13. What request does Oedipus make to Creon at the end of the play? What does this say about Oedipus?

14. FREYTAG'S PYRAMID: A diagram of dramatic structure, one which shows complication and emotional tension rising like one side of a pyramid toward its apex, which represents the climax of action. Once the climax is over, the descending side of the pyramid depicts the decrease in tension and complication as the drama reaches its conclusion and denouement. Freytag designed the chart for discussing tragedy, but it can be applied to many kinds of fiction. Label Freytag’s triangle using the action from Oedipus Rex.

Visit: http://www2.cnr.edu/home/bmcmanus/oedipusplot.html

15. Discuss the various types of irony present in the play (cosmic, verbal, situational, dramatic—it’s all there)s

======Read this quote:

The events that overwhelm the lives of the heroes are in no way be explained or justified, and in this we see the beginning of a painful reflection on the human condition, still current in the contemporary world.

For homework, write an essay (due Monday, September 8) where you explain why we read/study the play Oedipus Rex. In this essay, be sure to cite textual evidence and use personal experiences or stories about others to support your claims.