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Ancient Greece and the Formation of the Western Mind
Greece and its Colonies, 550 B.C.E.
TEXTS CONTEXTS ca. 1150 Troy destroyed by the Achaeans late 8th century B.C. Greek alphabetic scripts 776 Olympic Games founded in Greece ca. 700 Homer, the Iliad, the Odyssey 600 Sappho writing her Lyrics on the island of Lesbos 594 Solon reforms laws at Athens, which becomes the world's first democracy (508), and defeats a Persian invasion at Marathon (490) 490–479 Greece turns back a massive Persian invasion by sea at Salamis and by land at Plataea 458 Aeschylus's dramatic trilogy, The Oresteia, produced in Athens ca. 441 Sophocles, Antigone 431 Euripides, Medea 429–347 Plato, author of The Apology of Socrates and Phaedo 431–404 Peloponnesian War between Athens and Sparta; Athens surrenders (404) 399 Trial and execution of Socrates 384–322 Aristotle, author of Poetics ca. 385 Plato founds the Academy ca. 350 Beginnings of Indian epic, Mahabharata • Shuang-tse founds monist religious philosophy in China • Greek amphitheater built at Epidauros 335 Aristotle founds Peripatetic school of philosophy and lectures in the Lyceum
Athens—A City in Flux
Aeschylus, the forefather of the Greek drama, came of age during the twilight of ancient tribal ways that guided social and political affairs in Greece when it was primarily organized around rural clans, whose character and experiences were reflected in the myths they handed down before the 8th Century B.C.E.
The emergence of the polis, or city state, began to develop in the 7th Century B.C.E., demanding a new system of law; a new code that would accommodate the masses of individuals in a city, the exchange of goods and ideas, and a class system distinct from that of the old aristocracy
The polis demanded a reworking of the older myths and legends that no longer mirrored but still influence daily life
These reforms marked a major step towards democracy, enabling all free men to participate in the political decision making process—women were not considered citizens and did not participate in the political process, even under said “democratic policies”
“Districts” [or demes] were created to separate the tribes; each tribe/district contained members from the lower, middle, and upper classes Reproduction of Ancient Athens, about 120 AD.
The creation of these tribes/districts accentuated the distinction between kinship ties and civic allegiance dramatized in the plays of Aeschylus and Sophocles [one of his younger contemporaries]
Aeschylus refashioned the familiar stories of gods and heroes to 1] dramatize the disjunction and the union of values and institutions of the older religious system and those of the new polis, and 2] to probe the age-old question of human suffering in a universe presided over by divine forces
In all of his plays, Aeschylus reexamines the philosophical and moral code of myths and legends and asks what conditions, if any, man may challenge divine, legal, and political authority
It is great testament to Athenian democracy that the plays that were critical of the government [as some tragedies are interpreted as] were still allowed to be performed
The Greek Drama
Aeschylus’s plays were influential in establishing the principles of Greek drama
There were set dates on which the dramas were to be preformed, known as the Festivals of Dionysus
These annual spring festivals honored Dionysus, the god of wine and mystic ecstasy. During these festivals, playwrights competed for prizes for the best tragedy and the best comedy. Thespis was probably the first to add a masked actor, who engages in dialogue with the chorus, to these performances; later Aeschylus added a second actor, moving dialogue to the forefront of drama and creating the possibility for conflict. His plays established the prototype for drama as we know it today
Citizens were required to attend—prominent political persons were seated up front, and women, if they went at all, were placed in the back
Tragedy attempts to catch “the moment of disaster,” so it only covers a day at the most in its dramatic action
To show previous events or foreshadow future events, the chorus could provide a long narrative or the actor a long monologue
The makeup of the chorus determines the character/tone of the play: in Agamemnon, the chorus is comprised of helpless old men Masks used in ancient Greek theater were stylized to project a character's emotions
Three are three basic types of speech in tragedy: 1] monologue, called a rhesis, where the speaker gives a long speech; 2] the rapid conversation known as stychomuthia, literally “one-liners” traded back and forth between characters; and 3] whatever other dialogue that existed in between the monologue and stychomuthia
The drama itself has five parts: 1] a prologue, a summary of events leading up to the present moment; 2] parados, the entrance of the chorus onto the scene; and 3] the episode, in which characters debate or the crisis begins to unfold. Episodes have intervening 4] stasimon, “singing in place,” where the choir sings its odes [songs]; finally, at the end of the play is 5] an exodus
A final formal feature of a Greek drama is that there is no violence on the stage—when violence does occur, a messenger will come in and report what has just happened [often times screams will be heard, but offstage]
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