context: genre of tragedy

Question 1

where does contemporary theatre originate from?

Answer 1

Ancient Greece, by the ideas put forward by the great Greek poets- Aristotle, Euripides, Plato etc

Question 2

Greek tragedies were for (5)

Answer 2

• confrontation of social taboos
• set in the community and focused on close family drama (conflict, affairs, illegitmacy ect)
• they explored deaths (patricide, infanticide etc)
• appealing to a mass audience
• show powerful matriarchs and suffering women

Question 3

Aristotles unities as defined in Poetics

Answer 3

• Action: a well constructed plot should be single in its issue
• Time: Tragedy endeavours as far as possible to confine itself to a single revolution of the sun
• Place: explore issues and move away from them

Question 4

what is catharsis

Answer 4

the purification and purgation of emotions especially pity and fear through art or an extreme change in emotion. Aristotle used a metaphor to compare the effects of tragedy on the mind of the spectator to the effect of a cathartic on the body

Question 5

What is Harmatia

Answer 5

-acting without knowing; Aristotle believed that the high born and virtuous characters should commit a fatal flaw without knowing it at the time (e.g. Oedipus in Oedipus Rex killing his father and marrying his mother)

Question 6

what is Hubris

Answer 6

actions that humiliate or shame the victim for the pleasure of the abuser. These acts are unjustified and are not acts of revenge

Question 7

peripetia

Answer 7

when a situation is going one way and suddenly twist to go another

Question 8

Anagnorisis

Answer 8

a change from ignorance to awareness of a bind of love or hate

Question 9

strophe

Answer 9

first movement of the choral interlude

Question 10

pathos

Answer 10

pity and fear used by the poet to create cartharsis

Question 11

telos

Answer 11

the essence or unit of a given plot

Question 12

mimesis

Answer 12

poetic imitation

Question 13

Catalyst

Answer 13

a character whos actions serve to complicate the story, change the course of a characters action pr male possible the tragic or happy ending

Question 14

climax

Answer 14

the moment with the highest intensity and interst in a drama or story

Question 15

denoument

Answer 15

the final resolution of the conflicts and complications of a play

Question 16

epiphany

Answer 16

a moment of revelation or profound insight

Question 17

the medea complex

Answer 17

often described as women who commit infanticide- also seen as a pyschological condition: a murderous hatred of a mother for her children driven by the desire for revenge of her husband

Question 18

Key characteristics of tragedy in Shakesperean drama

Answer 18

• Shakespeare’s tragic heroes are fundamentally flawed (A.C. Bradley)
• They tend to focus on the fall of nobleman or a man with excessive wealth/ power
• the tragic heroes often fall victims to external pressures- fate, evil spirits and manipulative charcters all play a hand in the heroes downfall
• Hegel regarded shakespearean tragedy as something in whcih conflicts and resolution were interanl toits heroes rather tha objectively embodied in different ages

Question 19

Classical protagonist (McAvoy on Aristotle)

Answer 19

In poetics Aristotle write that a classical protagonist- like those in the tragedies of Sophocles could not be a man who was fully good or else the audience would feel only disgust at the injustice of his destruction in the play’s catastrophe. Neither could he be someone wicked, for then the audience would rejoice at his fall.

Question 20

Hubris

Answer 20

excessive pride which brings down punishment upon the head of the protagonist, as conventially the gods would guard their status jeslously, and would punish any mortal whose sense of personal pride and self importat appeared to exceed that which they believed was proper to humans

Question 21

Milton’s interpretation of view of Catharsis

Answer 21

during catharsis our emotions are ‘cleaned up’ and refreshed, allowing us to leave the theatre better able to judge what is worthy of emotion and what is no as it allows us to have some scale of proportion in our responses to the world

Question 22

Terry Eagletons rejection of Miltons interpreation of Catharsis

Answer 22

‘tragedy is a kind of public therapy for tjos in the cotezenry i danger of emotional flabbiness… tragedy hardens us agaismt fear, as we grow accustomed to seeing tjose more eminent than purselves coming ot grief, as well as discipling us to spare our pity for those who most deserve it… tadgey is thus an nstrument for reglatin gsocail feeling… a refuse dump for sociall undesirable emotions or at least a retraining programme