Greek Review Flashcards
Ekkyklema
Wheel cart of death
Mechane
Deus ex machina
(God of the machine)
*really squeeky = too funny for tragedies
Aulos
Single or double
Instrument
probably to play a chord accompanied by a melody over it
Thespis 540 BCE
Ne extant words
The first to step away from dithyramb, making actor + chorus
Toured with a small cart
Aeschylus
Actor pioneering?
Death?
How many plays?
FOUGHT AT MARATHON making Athens an important Polus (City State)
- frequent winner (13-time winner)
- pioneered the second actor
- Death by turtle shell from silly eagle
we have 7/80 Plays
- The Orestria (Only trilogy)
- The Persians (earliest)
Oresteia
Oresteia is the only complete trilogy we have.
- Movement from blood vengeance to democracy
Sophocles 496 - 406 BCE
Actor pioneering?
How many plays?
Accounts of this man performing naked all oiled up
- pioneered third actor
- gave actors more adverse roles
- lived to 90
7/ 120+ Plays
- Oedipus Rex, Antigone
- Inachus (but it’s in a mummified crocodile)
Euripides
Why we have so much Euripedes plays?
- Loser = banished from Athens
- not popular
- was made fun of
- Show women as improper
18 / 90 plays
- Medea
- Hippolytus
- Cyclops (only satyr play we have)
- Bacchae - story of women and Dionysus in forest
An entire volume survived?
THE STRAY “tragedy”
Rhesus by Euripides (before 440 BCE)
Greek Chorus
*often speaks in unison
*singing
*Dancing
*defines the social ethical framework of the play
*tool of assimilation
*propaganda
*colonization
*ideal spectator
*mood
*spectacle of moving in union
*Rhythm - break up scenes
*information - what happened off stage
*NOT PAID - Extensive training
*Theory of EPHEBES young men 18 - 20
Why participate in Greek Chorus?
undergo two years of military training that includes dancing and singing
- be part of Greek culture, practice assimilation, being part of a unit
Old Comedy
happened earlier
- highly particular and responsive to whatever present time is
*made fun of politicians and prominents of Athens
Aristophanes (11 total)
Birds, Frogs
New Comedy
Democracy ends 322 BCE
- less acceptable to crticize rulers
- Rome invades Greece 146 BCE
Stock characters & Stereotypes
- domestic settings
Extant Play by Menander
Dyskolos (The Grouch)
Founders of Western Philosophy
Plato (deductive model) & Aristotle (inductive model)
Plato 428 BCE
Detuctive Model
could have known Sochocles and Euripides in youth
- student of Socrates
- suspicious of art & poetry generally because they encourage a false sense of reality = dangerous
*WRITES IN DIALOGUE = bros a hipo
IMAGINE THE IDEAL CITY
- every man does one thing
- no use for poets and theatremakers because they’re perverted weirdos
- WE SHALL EXCLUDE THEM FROM IDEAL CITY
Platos Theory of forms
IDEA/THOUGHT = the ideal form
Physical = object made
Tangeable = drawing of an object
Aristotle 384 - 322 BCCE
Inductive Model
Plato’s student
Mimesis is chill as long people no it’s a representation
Aristotle The Poetics
Writes drama - we only have ‘tragedy’ book
- Thought earlier work was DESCRIPTIVE
*Poetics Tragedy = imitation of an action that is serious, yet embellished = NOT NARRATIVE
Aristotle thought Oedipus Rex was perfect example of good tragedy
Catharsis
Tragedy, through pity and fear, affects the proper purgation of these emotions
Hamartia
Misfortune is brought about by error or frailty (not vice)
Aristotle
Student of pluto
- mimesis is good
WROTE THE POETICS
Aristotle’s Poetics
we only have the tragedy not the comedy
Plato
- Really sus of art, created a false sense of reality
- pretending to be corrupt may lead to actual corruption
