The Sight, the Voice and the Deed: an Introduction to Drama from Sophocles to Goethe by Géza Kállay Introduction ....................................................................................................................................... 6 Chapter 1 ........................................................................................................................................... 9 Greek Tragedy. Sophocles ................................................................................................................ 9 1.1. Sophocles and the Greek Theatre ........................................................................................................... 9 1.1.1. Sophocles’ life and work ............................................................................................................ 9 1.1.2. Theatre and performance in Ancient Greece .............................................................................. 9 1.1.3. Aeschylus, the “father” and Sophocles, the “son” ................................................................... 11 1.2. Oedipus Rex – an interpretation ........................................................................................................... 11 Chapter 2 ......................................................................................................................................... 16 Some basic concepts of drama-analysis: from Aristotle to Freud .............................................. 16 2. 1. Aristotle: life and work ........................................................................................................................ 16 2.1.1. Aristotle’s life .......................................................................................................................... 16 2.1.2. Aristotle’s way of teaching philosophy and the place of The Poetics in his system ................ 16 2.1.3. Aristotle and Plato ................................................................................................................... 17 2.1.4. The problem with Aristotle’s works: system or jumble? ......................................................... 18 2.2. Aristotle’s silent debate with Plato on mimesis and poetry .................................................................. 19 2.3. The structure of Aristotle’s The Poetics ............................................................................................... 23 2.3.1. The Poetics (Peri poiletikes – On the Art of Poetic Creation, ca. 335 BC): Chapters 1-5: preliminaries ...................................................................................................................................... 23 2.3.2 The definition and the parts of tragedy ..................................................................................... 23 2.3.3. The plot .................................................................................................................................... 24 2.3.4 Tragedy quantitatively divided.................................................................................................. 25 2.3.5. The plot according to structure continued; pity and fear .......................................................... 25 2.4. Aristotle’s The Poetics in Lessing’s interpretation ............................................................................... 26 2.4.1. Hamburgische Dramaturgie ..................................................................................................... 26 2.4.2. Lessing on the unity of place and time ..................................................................................... 26 2.4.3. Lessing on pity, fear and catharsis ........................................................................................... 26 2.5. Aristotle on Comedy ............................................................................................................................. 29 2.6. Henri Bergson on comedy and laughter ............................................................................................... 32 2.7. Paul Ricoeur on Aristotel’s The Poetics ............................................................................................... 38 2.7.1. The inter-relatedness of metaphor and narrative (plot) ............................................................ 38 2. 7. 2. The inter-relatedness of muthos (plot) and mimesis (imitation) ............................................. 39 2.7.3. Three senses of the term mimesis ............................................................................................. 41 2.8. Freud and comedy ................................................................................................................................ 41 Chapter 3 ......................................................................................................................................... 46 Greek Comedy: Old and New ........................................................................................................ 46 3. 1. “Old Comedy”: Aristophanes .............................................................................................................. 46 3.2. Aristophanes: The Frogs ...................................................................................................................... 49 3.3. New Comedy: Menander (Menandros, c. 342 B. C. – c. 292 B. C.) .................................................... 51 3.3.1 Nine differences between Old and New Comedy ..................................................................... 51 3.3.2. Menander’s life and work ........................................................................................................ 53 3.3.3. Menander: Old Cantankerous .................................................................................................. 54 Chapter 4 ......................................................................................................................................... 56 Roman Drama. Plautus, Terence, Seneca ..................................................................................... 56 4. 1. The Beginnings of the Roman theatre: Roman comedy ...................................................................... 56 4.2. Plautus .................................................................................................................................................. 57 4. 2. 1. Plautus: Life and Work .......................................................................................................... 57 4.2.2. Plautus: Miles Gloriosus .......................................................................................................... 59 4. 3. Terence ................................................................................................................................................ 62 4.4. The “golden” and the “silver” age ...................................................................................................... 63 2 4.5. Roman tragedy ..................................................................................................................................... 64 4. 6. Seneca .................................................................................................................................................. 64 4.6.1. Seneca: lifer and work .............................................................................................................. 64 4. 6.2. Seneca and politics; the prose works and the tragedies .......................................................... 65 4.6.3. Seneca: Thyestes ...................................................................................................................... 66 Chapter 5: Medieval Drama .......................................................................................................... 68 5.1. The origin of Medieval drama: the ‘Quem quaeritis’-trope .................................................................. 68 5.2. Miracles and mysteries ......................................................................................................................... 69 5.3. Moralities .............................................................................................................................................. 74 5. 4. The problem of comedy in the Middle Ages ....................................................................................... 75 5. 4. 1. The problem of comedy ......................................................................................................... 75 5. 4. 2. The Chester Play of Noah’s Flood ......................................................................................... 77 5.4.3. The Second Shepherd’s Play .................................................................................................... 78 5. 5. The problem of tragedy in the Middle Ages ........................................................................................ 79 Chapter 6 ......................................................................................................................................... 82 Renaissance Drama I. The Renaissance World-View and Theatres in England. Kyd and Marlowe ........................................................................................................................................... 82 6.1. The Renaissance world-view ................................................................................................................ 82 6.2.