Module 2: Greek Theatre

Question 1

Catharsis

Answer 1

The process of releasing, and therefore providing relief from, strong or repressed emotions.

Question 2

Who argued tragic plays were valuable because watching them provided catharsis?

Answer 2

Aristotle

Question 3

Aristotle’s Tragedy Hierarchy

Answer 3

Plot
Character
Diction
Thought
Spectacle
Song

Question 4

Aristotle: A tragic plot needs what three elements?

Answer 4

1) Reversal (perpetia): just when things are getting OK, it gets terrible again; 2) Recognition (anagnorisis): character finally realizes something (“that was my mother!); 3) Scene of suffering (exile, suicide, etc.)

Question 5

What did Aristotle say tragedies should follow in order to avoid confusing audiences?

Answer 5

The three unities

Question 6

Unity of Action

Answer 6

A tragedy should have one principal action

Question 7

Unity of Time

Answer 7

The action in a tragedy should occur of a period of no more than 24 hours

Question 8

Unity of Place

Answer 8

A tragedy should exist in a single physical location

Question 9

Which of Aristotle’s three unities did theorists later tack on?

Answer 9

Unity of Place

Question 10

Who Wrote “The Poetics?”

Answer 10

Aristotle

Question 11

What did worshippers loft during the Dionysus rituals?

Answer 11

A giant phallus

Question 12

What were the songs of the Dionysus festival called?

Answer 12

Dithyrambs (acting out the song instead of just singing it)

Question 13

What was the Greek “birth of the actor?”

Answer 13

A single actor named Thespis stepped out from a chorus. He switched between characters using masks.

Question 14

What was City Dionysia?

Answer 14

A festival with a theatre competition at its center.

Question 15

Theatron

Answer 15

Seated section (“seeing place”) in Greek theatre

Question 16

Orchestra

Answer 16

Flat part where the chorus performed in Greek theatre

Question 17

Skene

Answer 17

Dressing hut where actors could change masks in Greek theatre

Question 18

Paradoi

Answer 18

Side entrances (Greek theatre)

Question 19

Deus Ex Machina

Answer 19

“God in the Machine”: Actor playing God could descend in a cart (Greek theatre)

Question 20

Cothurni

Answer 20

Platform shoes (Greek theatre)

Question 21

How did Plato feel about theatre?

Answer 21

Theatre is pointless, frivolous & “fun,” not helpful.

Question 22

Who were the choregos?

Answer 22

In City Dionysia’s theatre competitions, chosen playwrights were matched with a prominent Athenian citizen, the choregos, who bankrolled the play.

Question 23

Who was the “bad boy” of Greek drama?

Answer 23

Euripides, Wthe youngest and ballsiest of the three extant tragedians

Question 24

Who were the three extant Greek tragedians?

Answer 24

Aeschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides.

Question 25

What was the “Happy Idea” in Greek theatre?

Answer 25

Comedy

Question 26

What was Agave’s anagnorisis in Euripides’ “The Bacchae?”

Answer 26

She had beheaded her own son

Question 27

Who wrote “Lysistrata?”

Answer 27

Aristophanes

Question 28

How do most Greek comedies begin and end?

Answer 28

It kicks off with a “happy idea” and ends by restoring peace and order.

Question 29

What is Lysistrata’s “happy idea?”

Answer 29

The wives of soldiers involved in the Peloponnesian War withhold sex from their husbands, thus ending the war.

Question 30

What is the claimed “anti-war, feminist play?”

Answer 30

Lysistrata