Theatre scholarship

Question 1

Carey - festivals

Answer 1

drama festivals were an exercise in propaganda

Question 2

Higgins - attending theatre

Answer 2

to attend the theatre was a religious duty and responsibility of all pious citizens

Question 3

Dover - frogs unique

Answer 3

Frogs is unique among extant plays in providing us with the spectacle of a moving vehicle, Charons boat, which arrives to take Dionysus

Question 4

Steiner - tragedy

Answer 4

there is no place for tragedy in the modern world, governed by belief in rationality/mankind’s power to drive progress

Question 5

Higgins - tragedy (comfort)

Answer 5

maybe we want tragedy because it’s actually comforting to be told individual human actions have a meaning and grandeur

Question 6

Higgins - tragedy (gods)

Answer 6

greek tragedy is deeply interested in playing with the limits of human agency against a backdrop in which the gods are all powerful

Question 7

Taplin - tragedy

Answer 7

There is nothing intrinsically Dionysiac about Greek tragedy

Question 8

Seaford - tragedy

Answer 8

tragedy is a fairly good indication of what meant something to the Athenian audience

Question 9

Godhill - tragedy

Answer 9

tragedy is a very sobering and frightening story

Question 10

Henn - tragedy

Answer 10

tragedy offers not just redemption, but the assertion that man is splendid in his ashes

Question 11

Garland - euripides

Answer 11

it is possible Euripides was an atheist since he consistently presents hods in an extremely negative light and seems to call into question their entitlement to worship

Question 12

Taplin - masks

Answer 12

it looks as though the ‘neutrality’ of the mask was ready to take its expression from the tragedy rather than imposing a certain tone on it

Question 13

swift - hero

Answer 13

the hero’s character traits are not inherently bad but become problematic when pushed to an extreme

Question 14

swift - Achilles

Answer 14

Achilles is in many ways the prototype for the tragic hero

Question 15

Knox - hero

Answer 15

we find heros attractive

Question 16

Knox - hero decisions

Answer 16

the tragic hero makes a decision rooted in his personal nature and maintains it to the point of self destruction

Question 17

Cartledge - Aristophanes

Answer 17

the contribution of Aristophanes to comedy was overwhelming and unique.

Question 18

Seaford - Aristophanes

Answer 18

fairly idealogical

Question 19

Dover - humour

Answer 19

all humour of excretion belongs to all cultures

Question 20

Barette - frogs parabasis

Answer 20

the frogs highly political parabasis is what won its awards and repeated performances, not its satirical comedy

Question 21

Defraud - contest

Answer 21

the musical contest between Dionysus and the Frogs is a musical parody of the new Dithyrambs and therefore Euripides too

Question 22

Dodds - oedipus

Answer 22

a tragedy of destiny

Question 23

Garvie - Oedipus

Answer 23

His crimes were foretold before his birth

Question 24

Aristotle - man

Answer 24

a man is a political animal

Question 25

Seaford - tragic heroism

Answer 25

reversal and recognition are right at the centre of the Oedipus Tyranus

Question 26

Winnington-ingrom - Bacchae

Answer 26

Bacchae is the motif of justice

Question 27

Dover - Aeschylus and Euripides

Answer 27

Aristophanes is able to make the contrast between Aeschylus and Euripides to the familiar contrast between the valour, virtue and the security of the past.

Question 28

Bakola - A&E

Answer 28

Aeschylus and Euripides are presented as caricatures of what their art represented in the minds of the audience

Question 29

Barette - A&E

Answer 29

though Euripides and Aeschylus debate we see the difference between wisdom and cleverness, wisdom includes morality (Aeschylus died at war).

Question 30

Kovakes - A&E

Answer 30

the traits given to A&E are amusing and the contrast between them makes comic sense, but they are without value as an index of how either Aristophanes or his contemporaries really regarded them

Question 31

Griffiths - godsfrogs

Answer 31

Dionysus is seriously deficient as a hero/god and is cowardly and ineffective

Question 32

Griffiths - Dionysus frogs

Answer 32

he acts like a regular Athenian man

Question 33

Campbell - gods frogs

Answer 33

it is Dionysus who lowers the tone

Question 34

Wyles - gods frogs

Answer 34

Dionysus should be knowledgeable about the plays and yet his response is shown as unintelligent and unsophisticated.

Question 35

Dover - Dionysus frogs

Answer 35

we laugh more at him than with him

Question 36

MacDowell - Dionysus frogs

Answer 36

an effeminate character pretending to be manly

Question 37

Barette - initiates

Answer 37

some gods are able to be mocked without fear of retribution, such as Dionysus. Aristophanes is careful not to mock the chorus of initiates.

Question 38

Kovacs - Euripides

Answer 38

a wayward modernist bent on lowering the tone of tragedy by taking the heroic figures of myth down to the level of ordinary mortals

Question 39

Jones - comedy

Answer 39

comedy is not an effective medium for political intervention

Question 40

Bettendorf - function of frogs

Answer 40

the primary function of the play is not literary criticism but political action

Question 41

Sommerstein - frogs

Answer 41

it is impossible to understand frogs without appreciating that this was the shadow that hung over spectators, performers and authors.

Question 42

Redfield

Answer 42

the conflict between A&E is a poetic expression of the conflict between old and new politics and the victory of Aeschylus is a rejection of the new life-style, a return to the old moral code.

Question 43

Harrison and Affleck

Answer 43

The political question that emerges most insistently is who to trust

Question 45

Compton

Answer 45

Political satire is the hallmark of old comedy

Question 46

Affleck - Uncertainty

Answer 46

the play was written at a time of great uncertainty

Question 47

Affleck - Aristophanes

Answer 47

Aristophanes considered the situation on the tragic stage to be comparable to the military situation.