Midterm

Question 1

What is drama?

Answer 1

The imitation of actions (memisis)

Question 2

What states that theater is rooted in rituals to honor Dionysus?

Answer 2

Aristotle’s Poetics

Question 3

What is the theory that drama evolved from ancient Greek and Egyptian rituals?

Answer 3

Ritual Origin theory

Question 4

What are the 7 primary ingredients of drama?

Answer 4

PC-DS-MMT:

Plot, Characterization, Dialogue, Setting, Movement, Music, and Theme

Question 5

When did Thespis become the first recognized actor?

Answer 5

534 BCE

Question 6

What is Tragōidia?

Answer 6

“goat song”, basis for the word tragedy

Question 7

Who were the three tragedians of Greek drama?

Answer 7

SEA:

Sophocles, Aeschylus, and Euripides

Question 8

Who wrote Oedipus Rex?

Answer 8

Sophocles

Question 9

Who wrote Agamemnon?

Answer 9

Aeschylus

Question 10

Who wrote Medea?

Answer 10

Euripides

Question 11

What is “God from the Machine”?

Answer 11

Deux ex Machina

Question 12

What is the characteristic of Old Greek Comedy?

Answer 12

exuberant and high-spirited satire

Question 13

When did New Comedy emerge?

Answer 13

Between 4th and 3rd century BCE

Question 14

What is the characteristic of New Comedy?

Answer 14

witty and intellectually engaging

Question 15

What is often thought of as the first High Comedy?

Answer 15

New Comedy

Question 16

Who were the Dionysiakoi Technitai?

Answer 16

A troop of entertainers (similar to a circus) that traveled around Greece performing for the both commoners and nobility

Question 17

When did the Hellenistic Period start, and when did it end?

Answer 17

From the death of Alexander the Great until the rise of the Roman Empire

Question 18

When did the Roman Empire begin?

Answer 18

509 BCE

Question 19

What did Roman theatre heavily depend on?

Answer 19

Greek drama

Question 20

Who were Plautus and Terence?

Answer 20

Masters of Roman comedy, considered to be the greatest Roman dramatists

Question 21

Who was Lucius Annaeus Seneca?

Answer 21

Seneca the Younger, a Roman philosopher and tragedian

Question 22

Name the characters of Atellan Farce.

Answer 22

MDBP:

Maccus, the clown, Bucco, the stupid fat clown, Pappus, the old man, Dossennus, the hunchbacked slave

Question 23

Who was the best known of the Greek comic playwrights?

Answer 23

Aristophanes

Question 24

When did the Roman Empire split? What were the two splits?

Answer 24

330 CE
The western half was centered in Rome, and followed Roman Catholicism. The eastern half was centered in Constantinople and followed Eastern Orthodoxy.

Question 25

When did the medieval period begin?

Answer 25

When Rome fell

Question 26

What is Quem quaeritis?

Answer 26

The first known liturgical drama, performed during the 10th century.

Question 27

Who was Hrosvitha?

Answer 27

The first woman German poet. A nun, she wrote six Latin comedies based on Terence but embodying Christian themes.