greek theatre scholars

Question 1

Taplin on Dionysus and theatre

Answer 1

“there is nothing intrinsically Dionysiac about Greek tragedy”

“For the Athenians the great Dionysia was an occasion to stop work, drink a lot of wine, eat some
meat, and witness or participate in the various ceremonials, processions and priestly doings which are part of
such holidays the world over”
- there is no internal evidence from the plays themselves about the religious nature of the festival, only external.

Question 2

What does Bernard Knox say defines a tragic hero?

Answer 2

Someone who makes a decision rooted in personal nature (physis) and maintains it to the point of self destruction

Question 3

What scholar says the neutrality of the mask allows the expression to come from the tragedy itself not be imposed?

Answer 3

Taplin

“it looks as though the ‘neutrality’ of the mask was ready to take its ‘expression’ from the tragedy rather than imposing a certain tone upon it” (based on Promonos vase)

Question 4

How does Cartledge describe Aristophanic comedy?

Answer 4

‘inimitable cocktail’

Question 5

What did Storey and Allan say about the plots of Old Comedy?

Answer 5

“farce or fantasy might be more appropriate descriptions of what Aristophanes created.”
The plot of comedies is not intricate like tragedies but based on the exploration of a “great idea, the more bizarre the better”

Question 6

S. Mills on Dionysus in Bacchae?

Answer 6

“he is not a remote, spectacular deity but a deity who has deliberately disguised himself in human clothing to deceive a mortal into threatening and disrespecting him”

Question 7

S. Mills on Pentheus?

Answer 7

“Because Pentheus is manipulated into the mistake of believing that he is dealing with an equal, watching the whole experience becomes highly uncomfortable for the audience”

Question 8

Morwood on staging in Bacchae?

Answer 8

“If we feel that Dionysus’ treatment of suffering humanity is anything but a sport, we should remember that he may well be wearing a smiling mask.”

Question 9

Morwood on disorder in Bacchae?

Answer 9

“In driving the Theban women from the city to worship him on the mountainside, Dionysus has profoundly disrupted the city’s social structure. The women have abandoned not only their looms but their children too”

Question 10

Carey on the chorus in Bacchae?

Answer 10

“the chorus bring the mountains into the theatre space… the choral account of the bacchic ritual which they both remember and crave is the reality for the Theban women in the hills”

Question 11

Garvie on Dionysus and despair in the Bacchae?

Answer 11

“the most striking paradox is that the god who throughout the play promises joy will at the end produce only suffering and horror”

“Somehow the despair seems all the darker because of the recurring theme of joy that has preceded it”

Question 12

In the 4th century BC, Aristoxenus said what about tragedy?

Answer 12

speech sounds like song “when we become emotional” for example in Bacchae when Agave transitions from song to speech when she regains sanity

Question 13

who said “Much of its appeal for modern readers may derive from its resemblance in some respects to a detective novel”

Answer 13

Garvie

on the modern appeal of Oedipus the King

Question 14

who said
“Oedipus is ignorant but determined to know, whereas Tiresias knows the truth but is determined to supress it”

“Tiresias is physically blind, while Oedipus, the physically sighted, knows nothing”

Answer 14

Garvie

Question 15

who said
“The ridicule of the prophet and his prophecy reflects a change in Athens during the fifth century B.C., when the proponents of reason began to challenge the authority of spiritual power.”

Answer 15

Higgins

on context

Question 16

What does Higgins say about Catharsis in Oedipus?

Answer 16

“The pity and terror aroused by Oedipus’ tragic fall brings about a catharsis, the realisation that the power of fate cannot be overcome by will - even by the will of a king.”

Question 17

Who says Oedipus is his own destroyer?

Answer 17

Fagles

Question 18

Oedipus and knowledge according to Garvie?

Answer 18

“He never says, ‘I wish I had not found out’; for he has gained what he values most - knowledge, no matter what it costs.”

Question 19

Who says “Euripides presents Dionysus as a director who constructs his own play within a play”? about Bacchae?

Answer 19

Foley

Question 20

Wyles on Semele’s tomb and staging in Bacchae?

Answer 20

“The tomb is capable of heightening the tension as the audience watch Pentheus vehemently refusing to worship Dionysus in the presence of a visual symbol of divine power”

Question 21

Who says “Their ecstatic joy is chilling, while heightening the pathos for the circumstances of Pentheus’ destruction”?

Answer 21

Wyles

Question 22

Hanna Roisman on audience response to Pentheus?

Answer 22

“Neither completely good not completely bad, he has enough of the positive in him to arouse our sympathy when he is torn to pieces”

Question 23

Roisman on Pentheus’ desire to see that which he condemns?

Answer 23

“He is both repulsed by sex and at the same time unconsciously desiring it; Dionysus is aware of this weakness and takes advantage of it by releasing in him exactly what Pentheus is trying to suppress”

Question 24

Who says “Agave’s recognition scene is one of the most painful and harrowing scenes in Greek tragedy”?

Answer 24

Roisman

Question 25

Who says
“the performance experience of the audience meant that they would bring the memory of Aristophanes’ comic treatment of Dionysus with them as spectators of Bacchae”

Answer 25

Wyles

remember Euripides died before the play was produced so he certainly didn’t intend for this to be a response to the comedy of Bacchae

Question 26

Hall on Agave?

Answer 26

Agave commits the three most taboo forms of violence in her act of killing Pentheus - murder of kin, human sacrifice, and cannibalism (when she offers the chorus some of her prey to eat)

Question 27

Garvie on the audience?

Answer 27

the audience are in the position of the gods themselves

Question 28

Bettendorf on Frogs function?

Answer 28

the primary function of the play is political action

Question 29

Dover on staging in Frogs?

Answer 29

that frogs gives us the spectacle of a moving vehicle - Charon’s boat

(ekkyklema)

Question 30

Redfield on the victory of Aeschylus in Frogs

Answer 30

the victory of Aeschylus is a rejection of the new life style and a return of the old moral centre
- contrast between Aeschylus and Euripides makes comic sense

Question 31

Agócs on Frogs in it’s context?

Answer 31

“It is a play, intended for performance, which enacts a newly literate society’s fascination with texts, canons, education and authorship”
“In a very real sense, it’s the first surviving (if parodic) document of explicit ancient Greek theorising about literature”
“This is a play for an Athens that has learned to read”

Question 32

Agócs on why Aeschylus wins in Frogs?

Answer 32

“Aeschylus wins because he represents a nostalgic vision, un-contaminated by the small-mindedness of daily life, by corrupt and incompetent leadership, and by the losses of war, of a bygone age of Athenian heroism”

Question 33

Taplin on how Greek tragedy can translate to modern times?

Answer 33

“it is theatrical, emotional, absorbing-and so can still speak directly to us”

Question 34

Taplin on the agency of tragic heroes?

Answer 34

“never, except perhaps in
mad scenes, are the characters of Greek tragedy portrayed as automata or marionettes. Even when they are
viewed as victims of the gods, they remain human and independent”

Question 35

Goldhill on the Theoric fund?

Answer 35

“The Theoric Fund, which made payments to the citizens to enable them to attend the theatre, was protected by law: it was a prosecutable offence even to propose changes to the fund. It is easy to infer that attendance at the theatre was regarded as a citizen’s duty, privilege and requirement.”

Question 36

Edith Hall on the link between the theatre and the Polis?

Answer 36

“Athenian dependence on recognised membership of the polis was expressed in the recurrence of the themes of exile and loss of civic rights.”

Question 37

Dover on the link between comedy and politics?

Answer 37

“Of all the men whom we know from historical sources to have achieved political prominence at Athens during (this period), there is not one who is not attacked and ridiculed.

Question 38

Cartledge on the link between the theatre and the law courts? Shown in the agon between Euripides and Aeschylus in Frogs?

Answer 38

“the tragedians’ exploitation of technical legal language and ideas underlines the affinity between the theatre and the courts.”