Introduction
In the beginning there was rituals dance/music and mimesis (masks). Then, there was the art of written words (literature), as part of the historical development of writings in prose or poetry. The combination of these elements: ritual, dance, mimesis, and words became theatre. Only written theatre has survived the passing of time. In the case of literature, its purpose is to provide entertainment, enlightenment, or instruction to the reader, the hearer, the observer, as well as to provide the development of the literary techniques used in the communication of these pieces.
Theatre, equally entertains, enlightens and/or instructs the hearer and the observer, as well as it provides the development of drama techniques used in the representation of stories. In the beginning it provided a space for the performance of rituals, now it also offers a space for reflection. Last class we covered different dances of the world, today we will cover the written word until it merges with theatre. Then, we will go over the brief history of representation in the world to finish specifically with Greek Theatre and The Persians by Aeschylus.
Bronze Age Literature
The history of writing is the history of how systems of representation of language through graphic means have evolved in different human civilizations. True writing is only thought to have developed independently in four different civilizations in the world, namely Mesopotamia, China, Egypt and Mesoamerica. The Chinese and Mesopotamian writing systems have especially been influential in the development of the systems of writing in use in the world to day. Except for the Mesoamerican writing systems which developed considerably later than the rest (possibly around 900 BC), all writing systems developed from Neolithic proto-writing in the Early Bronze Age (4th millennium BC).
Commonly known as the "cradle of civilization", Bronze Age Mesopotamia included Sumer, Akkadian, Babylonian and Assyrian empires.
1. Sumerian Literature
• Sumerian literature is the oldest literature in the world. The Sumerians invented the first writing system, beginning with cuneiform logograms, which evolved into a syllabary writing system.
• The Sumerian language remained in official and literary use in the Akkadian and Babylonian empires, even after the spoken language disappeared from the population; literacy was widespread, and the Sumerian texts that students copied heavily influenced later Babylonian literature.
• Sumerian literature has not been handed down to us directly; rather it has been rediscovered through archaeology. Nevertheless, the Akkadians and Babylonians borrowed much from the Sumerian literary heritage, and spread these traditions throughout the Middle East, influencing much of the literature that followed in this region, including the Bible.
2. Egyptian Literature
• Egyptian literature traces its beginnings to ancient Egypt and therefore is some of the earliest known literature. Indeed, the Egyptians were the first culture to develop literature as we know it today, that is, the book.
• The Tale of Sinuhe is considered one of the finest works of Ancient Egyptian literature. It is a narrative set in the aftermath of the death of Pharaoh Amenemhat I, founder of the 12th dynasty of Egypt, in the early 20th century BC.
• Other well known works include the Westcar Papyrus and the Ebers papyrus, as well as the famous Book of the Dead.
• While most literature in ancient Egypt was so-called "Wisdom literature" (that is, literature meant for instruction rather than entertainment), there also existed myths, stories and biographies solely for entertainment purposes.
• The Nile had a strong influence on the writings of the ancient Egyptians, as did Greco-Roman poets who came to Alexandria to be supported by the many patrons of the arts who lived there, and to make use of the resources of the Library of Alexandria.
• Many great thinkers from around the ancient world came to the city, including Callimachus of Libya and Theocritus of Syracuse. Not all of the great writers of the period came from outside of Egypt, however; one notable Egyptian poet was Apollonius of Rhodes.
3. Assyro-Babylonian Literature
Assyro-Babylonian Literature is one of the worlds oldest. Drawing on the traditions of Sumerian literature, the Babylonians compiled a vast textual tradition of mythological narrative, legal texts, scientific works, letters and other literary forms.
As a scribal society, Babylon placed great prestige on its great literary works and on the practice of philology.
Most of what we have from the Babylonians was inscribed in cuneiform with a metal stylus on tablets of clay, called laterculae coctiles by Pliny the Elder; papyrus seems to have been also employed, but it has perished.
Assyrian culture and literature came from Babylonia. Under the second Assyrian empire, when Nineveh had become a great centre of trade.
Aramaic, a Semitic language, the language of commerce and diplomacy, the language of divine worship, was added to the number of subjects that the educated class was required to learn.
In Judaism, it was the day-to-day language of Israel in the Second Temple period (and was therefore the mother tongue of Jesus of Nazareth), the original language of large sections of the biblical books of Daniel and Ezra, and is the main language of the Talmud.
Under the Seleucids, Greek was introduced into Babylon, and fragments of tablets have been found with Sumerian and Assyrian (i.e. Semitic Babylonian) words transcribed into Greek letters.
The most famous written mythologies that have survived to this day are:
• The Epic of Gilgamesh, in twelve books, translated from the original Sumerian by a certain Sin-liqi-unninni, and arranged upon an astronomical principle. Each division contains the story of a single adventure in the career of Gilgamesh.
• Another epic was that of the "Creation" Enûma Eliš, whose object was to glorify Bel-Marduk by describing his contest with Tiamat, the dragon of chaos.
• The legend of Adapa, the first man — a portion of which was found in the record-office of the Egyptian king Akhenaton at Tell-el-Amarna — explains the origin of death.
• Among the other legends of Babylonia may be mentioned those of Namtar, the plague-demon; of Erra, the pestilence; of Etanna and of Anzu.
Classical literatures:
4. Persian Literature
o Middle Persian (a Western Iranian Language) literature is Persian literature of the 1st millennium AD, especially of the Sassanid period Pahlavi, where Literature can be divided in three parts: the Pahlavi version of the Avesta, (the primary collection of sacred texts of Zoroastrianism, composed in the Avestan language, generally known as the Zend-Avesta), the Pahlavi texts on religious subjects and the Pahlavi texts on non-religious subjects.
o Described by some as one of the great literatures of mankind, Persian literature has its roots in surviving works in Old Persian or Middle Persian dating back as far as 522 BCE, the date of the earliest surviving Achaemenid inscription, the Behistun Inscription.
o The Behistun Inscription (also Bisitun or Bisutun, Modern Persian: Old Persian: Bagastana, meaning "the god's place or land") is a multi-lingual inscription located on Mount Behistun in the Kermanshah Province of Iran, near the town of Jeyhounabad in western Iran.
o The inscription includes three versions of the same text, written in three different cuneiform script languages: Old Persian, Elamite, and Babylonian.
5. Chinese Dance, Literature and Opera
Before Literature emerged in China, there was dance. The art of Chinese dance traces its origins to even before the appearance of the first written Chinese characters.
Ceramic pots have been unearthed in the western Chinese province of Chinghai that depicts colorful dancing figures. A study of these archaeological artifacts reveals that people of the Neolithic Yang-shao culture of around the fourth millennium B.C. already had choreographed group dances in which the participants locked arms and stamped their feet while singing to instrumental accompaniment.
Chinese dance was divided into two types, civilian and military, during the Shang and Chou periods of the first millennium B.C. In civilian dance, dancers held feather banners in their hands, symbolizing the distribution of the fruits of the day's hunting or fishing. This gradually developed into the dance used in the emperor's periodic sacrificial rituals held outside the city, and other religious rituals.
During this period (before 206 BC) literature flourished. Chinese classic texts or Chinese canonical texts refer to the pre-Qin Chinese texts, especially the Confucian Four Books and the Five Classics.
The Confucian Four books were: The Great Learning (a chapter from the Classic of Rites), The Doctrine of the Mean (another chapter from the Classic of Rites), The Analects of Confucius (a twenty-chapter work of dialogues between Confucius and his disciples recorded by later Confucian scholars), and The Mencius (a book of conversations between Mencius and some kings of his time).
The Five Classics were: The I Ching, (a manual of divination), The Classic of Poetry (made up of 305 poems), The Three Rites,(three ancient ritual texts listed among the classics of Confucianism), The Classic of History, (a collection of documents and speeches) and The Spring and Autumn Annals, (a chronologically the earliest annals consisting of about 16,000 words, it records the events of the State of Lu from 722 BCE to 481 BCE, with implied condemnation of usurpations, murder, incest, etc.
Other classic texts include: The Classic of Music, (sometimes referred to as the sixth classic; it was lost by the time of the Han Dynasty), The Classic of Mohism, (attributed to the philosopher of the same name, Mozi), The Classics of Legalism, The Classics of Military Science, and The Classics of the History of China.
After the establishment of the Music Bureau in the Han Dynasty (206 B.C.-220 A.D.), an active effort was made to collect folk songs and dances. By the third century A.D., northern China was subjugated by the Hsiungnu, Sienpi, and Western Chiang peoples. In this way, folk dance forms of the various peoples of Central Asia were introduced into China, and merged with the original dances of the Han people.
This pattern continued well into the T'ang Dynasty (618-907 A.D.). Due to the more stable political situation during the T'ang Dynasty, dance in China entered into a period of unprecedented brilliance. The T'ang Dynasty imperial court founded the pear Garden Academy, the Imperial Academy, and the T'ai-ch'ang Temple, gathering the top dancing talent of the country to perform the magnificent, stately and incomparably lavish "Ten Movement Music" dance.
This dance incorporated elements from dance forms of the peoples of China, Korea, Sinkiang, India, Persia, and Central Asia into one colossal dance. It featured intricate body movement techniques, and made full use of colorful, gala stage costumes and props to set off the refined dance movements.
Poetry, songs, a dramatic plot, and background music were incorporated to create a comprehensive multimedia production rich in content and fanfare. This was a predecessor of modern Chinese opera, a popular form of drama and musical theatre in China with roots going back as far as the third century CE. There are numerous regional branches of Chinese opera, of which the Beijing opera is one of the most notable.
6. Indian Literature
Pali literature is concerned mainly with Theravada Buddhism, of which Pali is the traditional language. The earliest and most important Pali literature constitutes the Pali Canon, the scriptures of Theravada. These are mainly of Indian origin, and were written down in Ceylon in the last century BCE from oral tradition.
Literature in Sanskrit begins with the Vedas. The Vedas were composed between approximately 1500 BC and 600 BC (the Late Bronze Age to Early Iron Age) in pre-classical Sanskrit; Vedic literature forms the basis for the further development of Hinduism.
Then Sanskrit literature continues with the Sanskrit Epics of Iron Age India; the golden age of Classical Sanskrit literature dates to late Antiquity (roughly the 3rd to 8th centuries AD). Literary production saw a late bloom in the 11th century before declining after 1100 AD.
Continuing the tradition of the late Vedic Shrautasutra literature, Late Iron Age scholarship (ca. 500 to 100 BCE) organized knowledge into Sutra treatises, including the Vedanga and the religious or philosophical Brahma Sutras, Yoga Sutras, Nyaya Sutras. In reference to the Vedanga disciplines of grammar and phonetics, no author had greater influence than Panini, whose grammar effectively fixed the grammar of Classical Sanskrit.
The period between approximately the 6th to 1st centuries BC saw the composition and redaction of the two great epics, the Mahabharata and the Ramayana, with subsequent redaction progressing down to the 4th century AD. They are known as itihasa, or "that which occurred".
Drama as a distinct genre of Sanskrit literature emerges in the final centuries BC, influenced partly by Vedic mythology and partly by Hellenistic drama. It reaches its peak between the 4th and 7th centuries before declining together with Sanskrit literature as a whole.
Famous Sanskrit dramatists include Śhudraka, Bhasa, Asvaghosa and Kālidāsa. There are contemporary efforts towards revival, with events like the "All-India Sanskrit Festival" (since 2002) holding composition contests.
Given its extensive use in religious literature, primarily in Hinduism, and the fact that most modern Indian languages have been directly derived from or strongly influenced by Sanskrit, the language and its literature is of great importance in Indian culture, not unlike that of Greek and Latin in European culture.
7. Tamil Literature
Sangam Literature is one of the main sources used for documenting the early history of the ancient Tamil country. The ancient Sangam poems mention numerous kings and princes.
Sangam was the ancient academy, which enabled Tamil poets and authors to gather periodically to publish their work. The Sangam met periodically in the city of Madurai in South India under the patronage of the Pandya kings.
The current estimate is that the Sangam period lasted between 100 B.C.E. until 300 C.E. The earliest mention of the Sangam is to be found in the 8th century commentary on the Irayanar Agapporul.
It mentions three Sangams lasting, at long intervals, for a total of 9990 years. Sangam literature comprises some of the oldest extant Tamil literature, and deals with love, war, governance, trade and bereavement.
Unfortunately much of the Tamil literature belonging to the Sangam period had been lost. The literature currently available from this period is perhaps just a fraction of the wealth of material produced during this golden age of Tamil civilization.
Evidence from ancient Greek and Alexandrian travelers such as Strabo, Ptolemy and Pliny give details of the trade and other relations between the Tamil states and the ancient Greece and Rome.
8. Sri Lanka
• Sri Lanka became the headquarters of Theravada for centuries, and most Pali literature in this period was written there, though some was also produced in outposts in south India.
• After a gap following the completion of the canon in which little or no Pali literature was produced, it restarted with the Dipavamsa, a verse chronicle of Buddhism in India and Ceylon, followed by a similar, but longer, work, the Mahavamsa.
• Then, there emerged Buddhaghosa's Visuddhimagga, which came to be regarded as the standard summary of the traditional interpretation of the scriptures, in the fourth or fifth century.
• Buddhaghosa also compiled commentaries on much of the Canon, work continued by his successors, who also produced subcommentaries on many commentaries, and sometimes even subsubcommentaries.
• There were also handbooks summarizing some aspects of the teachings, and other literature, all or nearly all concerned with Buddhism, at least ostensibly.
• From the early thirteenth century the writing of Pali literature in Ceylon went into a steep decline, though it never ceased entirely. Instead, Buddhist literature was written in Sinhalese.
9. Burma
From the fifteenth century onwards, Pali literature has been dominated by Burma, though some has also been written in Thailand, Laos and Cambodia, as well as Ceylon.
This Burmese literature has in turn been dominated by writings directly or indirectly concerned with the Abhidhamma Pitaka, the part of the Canon variously described as philosophy, psychology, metaphysics etc.
10. Latin Literature
Latin literature, the body of written works in the Latin language, remains an enduring legacy of the culture of ancient Rome.
The Romans produced many works of poetry, comedy, tragedy, satire, history, and rhetoric, drawing heavily on the traditions of other cultures and particularly on the more matured literary tradition of Greece.
Long after the Western Roman Empire had fallen, the Latin language continued to play a central role in western European civilization.
Latin literature is conventionally divided into distinct periods. Few works remain of Early and Old Latin; among these few surviving works, however, are the plays of Plautus and Terence, which have remained very popular in all eras down to the present, while many other Latin works, including many by the most prominent authors of the Classical period, have disappeared, sometimes being re-discovered after centuries, sometimes not.
Such lost works sometimes survive as fragments in other works which have survived, but others are known from references in such works as Pliny the Elder's Naturalis Historia or the De Architectura of Vitruvius.
Mesoamerican literature and Theatre
The traditions of indigenous Mesoamerican literature extend back to the oldest-attested forms of early writing in the Mesoamerican region, which date from around the mid-1st millennium BCE.
Many of the pre-Columbian cultures of Mesoamerica are known to have been literate societies, who produced a number of Mesoamerican writing systems of varying degrees of complexity and completeness.
Mesoamerican writing systems arose independently from other writing systems in the world, and their development represents one of the very few such origins in the history of writing.
The Maya script, also known as Maya hieroglyphs, was the writing system of the pre-Columbian Maya civilization of Mesoamerica, presently the only deciphered Mesoamerican writing system.
Three major subjects of Mesoamerican literatures can be identified: Religion, time and astronomy.
Mythological Narratives: Popol Wuj (the legendary mythological history of the Quiché people); Codex Chimalpopoca (the main source of the Aztec creation myth of the Five Suns); Codex Aubin (Recounting the Mythical wanderings of the Mexica from Aztlan and to Tenochtitlan); Historia Tolteca Chichimeca (the Aztec myth of the legendary Toltec and Chichimec peoples).
Poetry: Many of the poems are attributed to named Aztec rulers such as Nezahualcoyotl. Because the poems were transcribed at a later date, scholars dispute whether these are the actual authors. Many of the mythical and historical texts also have poetic qualities. An example of Mayan Poetry is the Songs of Dzitbalche (the source of almost all the ancient Mayan lyric poems that have survived, and is closely connected to the Books of Chilam Balam, sacred books of the cololonial Yucatec Maya.
Theatre: The epic play Rabinal Achi, a Maya theatrical play performed in Rabinal, Baja Verapaz, Guatemala. Its original name is Xajooj Tun meaning, Tun (drum) Dance. Rabinal Achí is a dynastic Maya drama from the fifteenth century and a rare example of pre-Hispanic traditions. It comprises myths of origin and addresses popular and political subjects concerning the inhabitants of the region of Rabinal, expressed through masked dance, theatre, and music. It is the only play which survived European invasion without being influenced by European culture.
Ancient Greek Literature
Mycenaean Literature
• Mycenaean Literature is the most ancient attested form of the Greek language, spoken on the Greek mainland and on Crete in the 16th to 11th centuries BCE, before the Dorian invasion.
• It is preserved in a script first attested on Crete before the 14th century BCE. Most instances of these inscriptions are on clay tablets found in Knossos in central Crete, and in Pylos in the southwest of the Peloponnese.
• The language is named after Mycenae, the first of the palaces to be excavated.
Homer
• At the beginning of Greek literature stand the two monumental works of Homer, the Iliad and the Odyssey.
• The Iliad is the famous story about the Trojan War.
• It centers on the person of Achilles, who embodied the Greek heroic ideal.
• While the Iliad is pure tragedy, the Odyssey is a mixture of tragedy and comedy.
• It is the story of Odysseus, one of the warriors at Troy.
• After ten years fighting the war, he spends another ten years sailing back home to his wife and family.
Hesiod
• The other great poet of the pre-classical period was Hesiod.
• Unlike Homer, Hesiod speaks of himself in his poetry; it remains true that nothing is known about him from any external source. He was a native of Boeotia in central Greece, and is thought to have lived and worked around 700 BC.
• His two works were Works and Days and Theogony.
• The first is a faithful depiction of the poverty-stricken country life he knew so well, and it sets forth principles and rules for farmers.
• Theogony is a systematic account of creation and of the gods. It vividly describes the ages of mankind, beginning with a long-past Golden Age.
• Together, the works of Homer and Hesiod made a kind of bible for the Greeks. Homer told the story of a heroic past, and Hesiod dealt with the practical realities of daily life.
Lyric Poetry
• The type of poetry called lyric got its name from the fact that it was originally sung by individuals or a chorus accompanied by the instrument called the lyre.
• The first of the lyric poets was probably Archilochus of Paros, circa 700 BC.
• Only fragments remain of his work, as is the case with most of the poets. The few remnants suggest that he was an embittered adventurer who led a very turbulent life.
• The two major poets were Sappho and Pindar.
• Sappho, who lived in the period from 610 BC to 580 BC, has always been admired for the beauty of her writing.
• Her themes were personal. They dealt with her friendships and with her dislikes of other women, though her brother Charaxus was the subject of several poems. Unfortunately, only fragments of her poems remain.
• With Pindar the transition has been made from the pre-classical to the classical age. He was born about 518 BC and is considered the greatest of the Greek lyricists.
• His masterpieces were the poems that celebrated athletic victories in the games at Olympia, Delphi, Nemea, and the Isthmus of Corinth.
Greek Drama
o Greeks also invented drama.
o In the age that followed the Greco-Persian Wars, the awakened national spirit of Athens was expressed in hundreds of superb tragedies based on heroic and legendary themes of the past.
o The tragic plays grew out of simple choral songs and dialogues performed at festivals of the god Dionysus.
o Wealthy citizens were chosen to bear the expense of costuming and training the chorus as a public and religious duty.
o Attendance at the festival performances was regarded as an act of worship.
o Performances were held in the great open-air theater of Dionysus in Athens.
o All of the greatest poets competed for the prizes offered for the best plays.
The Western Theatre tradition begins with Greek Theatre? Why?
It could be because we privilege text and the text remains to be a type of archival documentation of this form of representation as supposed to dance which only survives through an idea of what it could have been based on pictures, engravings, descriptions.
We were European colonies, so we inherited the colonizer’s academic cannon and the colonizer’s erasure and inflicting shame of our own cultural histories and heritages.
We have covered however, other forms of theatrical events that could have existed previous to the emergence of Greek theatre with the attempt of creating a more inclusive, multidisciplinary and multicultural picture of the performing arts world.
The search could go on forever, but hopefully this is only the seed of future investigations that many of you would eventually undertake.
We mentioned the Apollonian and the Dionysian Greek Festivals. The Apollonian being a type of ceremonial dance incorporating slower cult dances performed during religious festivals, as well as martial and social dances performed during communal events and funeral practices (they were accompanied by guitars called lyres, lutes and kitharas) and the Dionysian or Bacchanalian festival where dances were associated with the cult of Dionysus which is about passion, panic and desire. It is an “orgasmic” dance with breathtaking moves whose purpose is to connect all to a frenetic dance vibration.
One important characteristic of Greek gods is that they behaved like humans. Therefore, Greek plays were ways in which myth and history, Gods and humans, Apollonian and Dionysian principles also mixed constantly. Ultimately, in Greek drama the mixed also involved all the known performing arts, dance, music and drama.
Greek Theatre
The beginnings of Greek theatre were in improvisation of tragedy and comedy. Tragedy originated in impromptus by the leaders of dithyrambic choruses, and comedy in those of the leaders of the phallic performances which still remain customary in many cities. Little by little tragedy grew greater as the poets developed them further. Greek plays were performed in an outdoor theater, used masks, and were almost always performed by a chorus and three actors (no matter how many speaking characters there were in the play, only three actors were used; the actors would go back stage after playing one character, switch masks and costumes, and reappear as another character).
As already mentioned, Greek plays were performed as part of religious festivals in honor of the god Dionysus, and unless later revived, were performed only once. Plays were funded by the polis, and always presented in competition with other plays, and were voted either the first, second or third (last) place. Tragedies almost exclusively dealt with stories from the mythic past (there was no "contemporary" tragedy), comedies almost exclusively with contemporary figures and problems.
The major parts of a Greek theater are:
Orchestra: The orchestra (literally, "dancing space") was normally circular. It was a level space where the chorus would dance, sing, and interact with the actors who were on the stage near the skene. The earliest orchestras were simply made of hard earth, but in the Classical period some orchestras began to be paved with marble and other materials. In the center of the orchestra there was often a thymele, or altar. The orchestra of the theater of Dionysus in Athens was about 60 feet in diameter.
Theatron: The theatron (literally, "viewing-place") is where the spectators sat. The theatron was usually part of hillside overlooking the orchestra, and often wrapped around a large portion of the orchestra (see the diagram above). Spectators in the fifth century BC probably sat on cushions or boards, but by the fourth century the theatron of many Greek theaters had marble seats.
Skene: The skene (literally, "tent") was the building directly behind the stage. During the 5th century, the stage of the theater of Dionysus in Athens was probably raised only two or three steps above the level of the orchestra, and was perhaps 25 feet wide and 10 feet deep. The skene was directly in back of the stage, and was usually decorated as a palace, temple, or other building, depending on the needs of the play. It had at least one set of doors, and actors could make entrances and exits through them. There was also access to the roof of the skene from behind, so that actors playing gods and other characters (such as the Watchman at the beginning of Aeschylus' Agamemnon) could appear on the roof, if needed.
Parodos: The parodoi (literally, "passageways") are the paths by which the chorus and some actors (such as those representing messengers or people returning from abroad) made their entrances and exits. The audience also used them to enter and exit the theater before and after the performance.
Structure of the Plays
The basic structure of a Greek tragedy is fairly simple. After a prologue spoken by one or more characters, the chorus enters singing and dancing. Scenes then alternate between spoken sections (dialogue between characters, and between characters and chorus) and sung sections (during which the chorus danced). Here are the basic parts of a Greek Tragedy:
a. Prologue: Spoken by one or two characters before the chorus appears. The prologue usually gives the mythological background necessary for understanding the events of the play.
b. Parodos: This is the song sung by the chorus as it first enters the orchestra and dances.
c. First Episode: This is the first of many "episodes", when the characters and chorus talk.
d. First Stasimon: At the end of each episode, the other characters usually leave the stage and the chorus dances and sings a stasimon, or choral ode. The ode usually reflects on the things said and done in the episodes, and puts it into some kind of larger mythological framework.
For the rest of the play, there is alternation between episodes and stasima, until the final scene, called the.
e. Exodos: At the end of play, the chorus exits singing a processional song which usually offers words of wisdom related to the actions and outcome of the play.
Important Concepts:
Peripeteia: or ("reversal of fortune") in Greek, is the turning point in a drama after which the plot moves steadily to its conclusion. As discussed by Aristotle in the Poetic, it is the shift of the tragic protagonist’s fortune from good to bad, which is essential to the plot of a tragedy. It is often an ironic twist. For example, in Sophocles’ Oedipus Rex, the peripeteia takes place when a messenger brings Oedipus news about his parents that he thinks will cheer him, but the news instead slowly brings about the awful recognition that leads to Oedipus’s doom.
Anagnorisis: Anagnorisis usually involves revelation of the true identity of persons previously unknown, as when a father recognizes a stranger as his son, or vice versa. One of the finest occurs in Sophocles’ Oedipus Rex when a messenger reveals to Oedipus his true birth, and Oedipus recognizes his wife Jocasta as his mother, the man he slew at the crossroads as his father and himself as the unnatural sinner who brought misfortune on Thebes. This recognition is the more artistically satisfying because it is accompanied by a peripeteia (“reversal”), the shift in fortune from good to bad that moves on to the tragic catastrophe. An anagnorisis is not always accompanied by a peripeteia.
Hamartia: In Greek tragedy, the concept of hamartia as an error in judgment or unwitting mistake is applied to the actions of the hero. For example hamartia takes place when the hero, by attempting to achieve a certain objective, makes an error in judgment, achieving instead the hero instead achieves the opposite of what he/she intended to achieve, with disastrous consequences. Aristotle cites the example of Oedipus, who leaves his parents to prevent the fulfillment of the oracle’s prediction that he would kill his father and marry his mother, but by leaving his parents, not knowing that those he knew as his parents had adopted him, he ends up meeting his real father and mother who he kills and marries respectively.
Catharsis: It is the purgation or cleansing of the tragic emotions of pity and fear. Catharsis, as tragedy, is another Aristotelian term. The word means “purging,” and Aristotle seems to be employing a medical metaphor—tragedy arouses the emotions of pity and fear in order to purge away their excess, to reduce these passions to a healthy, balanced proportion. Aristotle also talks of the “pleasure” that is proper to tragedy, apparently meaning the aesthetic pleasure one gets from contemplating the pity and fear that are aroused through an intricately constructed work of art.
Aeschylus
Aeschylus was born in 524 or 525 BC in the city of Eleusis. During his career, Aeschylus made some innovations that are considered key in the development of theatre as we know it. The chorus, one of Greek theatre’s most important features until then, was reduced in size and importance in favor of dramatic dialogue. Instead, the chorus assumed a secondary role, commenting, warning or setting the mood for the action of the play which was now carried by the actors. Aeschylus, its playwright, together with Sophocles and Euripides, is considered one of the best-known Athenian tragic poets. Yet, it is Aeschylus who is also considered the 'Father of Tragedy.
Of the 90 or so plays Aeschylus wrote, only seven have survived in complete form, among them the 'Oresteia' trilogy, 'The Seven against Thebes' and 'Prometheus Bound'. Aeschylus himself did not care about his fame: he wanted to be remembered not for his tragedies, but for the fact that he had fought at Marathon in 490 BC, at the Salamis battle 480 BC and probably also in Plataea one year later. In 468 BC Sophocles appears as a serious opponent and seems to be a reason of Aeschylus anger as Sophocles becomes a winner in a contest. He lives Athens. He is charged with "impiety" for revealing the Eleusinian mysteries—secret rites to some outsiders.
The rituals practiced during the Athenian religious festivals were kept secret, shown only to the initiated, and it was totally forbidden to speak of them publicly. Legend has it that Aeschylus met his death when a Gypaetus barbatus mistook his bald head for a rock and dropped a tortoise on it. He dies in Gela (c. 456 BC) in one of his trips to Sicily.
During the Hellenistic age (300-150 BCE), the cult was taken over and run by the state. Unlike classical Greece (400s BCE) during this age, mystery cults were becoming very popular. The mysteries existed from Mycenaean times (circa 1600-1200 BCE), thought to have been established in the 1500s BCE and held annually for two thousand years. The Roman emperor Theodosius closed the sanctuary in CE 392, and finally it was abandoned when Alaric, king of the Goths, invaded Greece in CE 396. This brought Christianity to the region, and all cult worship was forbidden.
The Persians (Synopsys)
The Persians, written seven years after the war at Salamis (480), is the only Greek play notable for being based on contemporary events. In the play Aeschylus tells us about the Athenian victory at the Salamis battle. The Persians, written seven years after the event, is also the oldest surviving play in history. It was produced in 472 BC along with three other plays, which do not survive, but which probably also had something to do with the Persian Wars. The first play, Phineas, was apparently about the mythological figure Phineas, who helped Jason and the Argonauts pass into Asia. The Persians was the second part. Aeschylus had participated in the battle of Salamis, and it is likely that most of his Athenian audience had either fought in the battle or had been affected by it directly. Glaucus Potnieus, the third part, seems to have been about the Battle of Platea of 479 BC. The fourth play, a satyr play, may have been about Prometheus.
The Persians takes place in Susa, the capital of Persia, and opens with the chorus (representing Persian nobles) and Queen Mother Atossa awaiting news of King Xerxes' expedition against the Greeks. This is an unusual beginning for a tragedy by Aeschylus; normally the chorus would not appear until slightly later, after a speech by a minor character, but if we think that in the beginning was the chorus(allegory).
A messenger then arrives, delivering news of the defeat, the names of the Persian leaders who have been killed, and the relieving news that King Xerxes had escaped and is returning. Then he plunges into a graphic description of the battle and its gory outcome. The climax of the messenger's soliloquy is his rendition of the battle cry of the Greeks as they charged: "Forward, sons of the Greeks, liberate the fatherland, liberate your children, your women, the temples of your ancestral gods, the graves of your forebears: this is the battle for everything".
Atossa then goes to the tomb of her dead husband Darius, who appears to her as a ghost, although he is ignorant of the defeat. The ghost of Darius (almost a unique occurrence in ancient Greek tragedy - the only other ghost known to appear on stage is in another play by Aeschylus, The Libation Bearers) goes on to explain that the Persians were defeated because of the hubris of his son, Xerxes, who constructed a bridge of boats across the Hellespont and by doing so offended the gods (by this, Aeschylus means that the gods, rather than Athens, were responsible for Athens' victory). The ghost of Darius also makes a reference to the Battle of Plataea, another Greek victory, probably foreshadowing the third play.
Xerxes, the tragic hero of the play, does not appear until the end. He has returned in defeat and in shame, and does not realize his own hubris was the cause of his defeat. The end of the play is filled with lamentations by Xerxes and the chorus. There is no peripeteia ("reversal of fortune"), as a tragedy would normally have - Xerxes is never portrayed as a king with a good fortune to be reversed. He does, however, realize the cause of his defeat (the anagnorisis), and ends the play more noble than when he entered.
Aeschylus wanted his audience to feel pity for the Persians, the enemy they had so recently defeated. The Persians is the earliest-surviving theatrical play, but by then Aeschylus was already in full command of a playwright's skills: his praise of his city is subtle, his characters are shown respect and possess depth of nuance, and he shows himself the consummate master of creating dramatic tension and atmosphere even as he is talking about events entirely familiar to his audience.
The play (or, rather, all four plays) won the Dionysia festival in Athens in 479, and it was reproduced in Sicily in 467 BC (one of the few times a play was reproduced during the lifetime of the author). The version produced in 467 probably forms the basis of the surviving version, and may have been slightly different from the original. It was also later a popular play in the Roman Empire and Byzantine Empire, who also fought wars with the Persians.
The Persians
Source:
• Aeschylus. Prometheus Bound and Other Plays: The Persian. Trans. By Phillip Vellacott. Penguin Classics, 1961.
• Aeschylus. The Persians. Trans. by Robert Potter. The Internet Classic Archive. April 13, 2009.
Analysis
The analysis will take place among sub-groups who will discuss different questions about the play
For each group:
1. In the theatre of your mind, describe the Dramatis Personae or characters in terms of costumes, personality, physical attributes, etc.
2. What is the play’s genre?
The Persians is a tragedy. Aristotle's description of tragedy in the Poetics
explains:
“Tragedy, then, is an imitation of an action that is serious, complete, and of a certain magnitude; in language embellished with each kind of artistic ornament, the several kinds being found in separate parts of the play; in the form of action, not of narrative; with incidents arousing pity and fear, wherewith to accomplish its catharsis of such emotions. . . . Every Tragedy, therefore, must have six parts, which parts determine its quality—namely, Plot, Characters, Diction, Thought, Spectacle, Melody.”
• Locate the 'tragic' element of the Persian War in the play.
3. What points of comparison can we see between the Persians as a form of representation and the War in Iraq for Americans? [good versus evil, east versus west, cultural construct of the other, (the enemy), democracy versus tyranny, etc] Explain.
4. What is the result of laying the scenes of the play in Persia, instead of on Greece where the battle of Salamis was fought?
The device adopted by Aeschylus is that of laying the scene in Persia by which he made his countrymen the witnesses, as it were, of the ruin and degradation of their adversaries; and it is easy to imagine the emotions which such a performance must have excited in the minds of the Athenian audience.
5. What is the importance of this play for our contemporary understanding of history?
You could say that The Persians, which was written in 472 BC, was the first docudrama. Its author, Aeschylus, is best known as a playwright and poet -- but the only words on his tombstone describe him as a soldier who fought the Persians at the battle of Marathon. We could argue that the play offers a particular construct of Persia which is ultimately more revealing of Athens and Aeschylus than it is of Persia. It makes one consider also the political dimensions of the play, and its aural and visual impact on the Greek audience of the times. Was it a form of propaganda?
6. The reading of these scenes was to Greeks as the watching of the news about the was in Iraq is to Americans? Explain.
• Most of them had taken an active part in the great events described.
• In the drama which was now unfolded before their eyes they saw their enemies receiving, in abject despair, the successive tidings of calamity; they heard the stately narrative of those life and death struggles from which they had just emerged.
• They beheld the actual workings of that oppressive despotism from which they themselves had narrowly escaped.
• The Athenians of the period tended to view themselves as essentially democratic, non-hierarchical, capable of self-restraint, and masculine; consequently their opponents emerge as tyrannical, decadent, luxurious, and effeminate.
7. About the depiction of Xerxes as effeminate, where do you see documented the "feminization" of the Persians throughout the play? For instance, the clothes that Xerxes wears, the way he tears them, and his shrill lamentations all gender him female. (147 to the end) How does the representation of Xerxes correlates with the pictures of Sadam Hussein?
8. How would you characterize Aeschylus use of hubris in his play in comparison to the story?
• King Xerxes is away at battle, having led the Persians on a campaign to defeat the Greeks. Word arrives that the Persians have suffered defeat at the Battle of Salamis, leaving King Xerxes to return to his people, a symbol of hubris and shame.
Hubris: in Classical Athenian usage, the intentional use of violence to humiliate or degrade.
• Although Aeschylus depicts the Persians are arrogant, the very image of power and war, he still portrays them with all the complexities characteristic of tragic figures; he sees them as human.
9. What is the political stand of the play?
• The play The Persians makes one more conscious of the need to take responsibility in a democracy.
• On one level, The Persians is a play about the strengths and resilience of democracy; the Greeks are better fighters, because they rule themselves.
• The tone is one, not of triumph, but of solemn warning, addressed to victors as well as vanquished. The truth continually enforced is the certainty of the retribution which awaits the oppressor.
• It is not so much the struggle of liberty against despotism, or of Greek against barbarian, as the spectacle of divine justice humbling the pride of nations.
• The purpose of the tragedy, then, is essentially a moral one: the glory and triumph of the Greeks are only incidentally displayed.
• A spectacle of this kind must have gone to their hearts with a directness which no legend could hope to equal.
10. How is manifested Aeschylus’ self-given license to portray the enemy?
• It has often been observed that no individual Greek is mentioned by name in the course of the play. The omission is remarkable, and was due, not so much to the fear of exciting jealousy and party feeling, as to the desire of avoiding everything familiar, and of imparting a sort of mysterious dignity to the tragedy, by confining it to strange scenes and distant peoples.
• The usual occupants of the tragic stage being gods and heroes, when a poet ventured to descend from this ideal region into the atmosphere of ordinary life, it was necessary to retain as much as possible of the accustomed splendor in the performance. This result might be attained, in part, by the exclusion of familiar names and places, and the selection of things marvelous and unknown.
• The air of remoteness from everyday life which pervades the Persians, the sense of strangeness intensified by the local coloring given to the play, the long enumerations of Persian names, and barbarous exclamations of sorrow, the chorus of elders addressing the queen with oriental adulation as "wife and mother of a god"; the sight of Darius provoking fear, Atossa's high-flown description of her libations, all suggest the extravagance of oriental imagination.
• The final scene, too, in which Xerxes and the chorus, amid wild and barbarous music, abandon themselves to paroxysms of sorrow, is no doubt intended as a picture of Persian effeminacy.
• Yet it is to be observed, at the same time, that Aeschylus, like Shakespeare, and most early poets, shows little regard for archaeological accuracy. The gods invoked by the Persians are the ordinary Greek gods, Zeus, Hermes, and Apollo; a statue of Apollo stands, in Greek fashion, before the royal palace; the offerings on the tomb of Darius are Greek, and not Persian.
11. What is the relevance of this play for contemporary first world audiences?
• The play's message about the dangers of denial in a civilization. "[The Persians] are facing this great disaster, too late to change, because they haven't heard the warning signs the signals that our civilization gives us, and that we still deny. We may say “it is exaggerations of the media or it won't happen, or we will be dead when it happens, so who cares." But in reality it is this attitude what historically has caused destruction and war. (So, apathy, numbness, nihilism, cynicism, powerlessness, hopelessness, prepotency, sense of entitlement.)
Bibliography
"Anagnorisis." Encyclopædia Britannica. 2009. Encyclopædia Britannica Online. 12 Apr. 2009
Aristotle, Harris Rackham and Stephen Watt. The Nicomachean Ethics. Trans. Harris Rackham. Wordsworth Editions, 1996
Bryn Mawr Classical Review 97.8.13. Edith Hall (comm.), Aeschylus Persians. Warminster: Aris and Phillips, 1996. April 14, 2009.
Eglert, Walter. Ancient Greek Theater. Hum 110 Tech. April 11, 2009.
Jason and the Golden Flee. (Video) April 11, 2009.
Lahanas, Michael. Aeschylus (525/4 - 456 BC).
Lahanas, Michael. The Persians. April 11, 2009.
Leadbetter, Ron. Eleusinian Mysteries. Encyclopedia Mythica. April 11, 2009.
Outline of Aristotle's Theory of Tragedy in the Poetics. April 14, 2009.
"Peripeteia." Encyclopedia Britannica. 2009. Encyclopedia Britannica Online. 12 Apr. 2009.
The Art of Chinese Dance. April 13, 2009.
Videography
Adler, Margot. A Greek View of War's Tragedy: 'The Persians.' NPR. Performing Arts. September 23, 2006. April 13, 2009.
Ancient Greece: Greek Drama. Many of the themes explored by ancient Greek playwrights are still relevant today. April 11, 2009.
Engineering an Empire - The Persians - Part 3 of 5. April 12, 2009.
Engineering an Empire - The Persians - Part 4 of 5. April 12, 2009.
History of Theater 1 - From Ritual to Theater / Ancient Greek. On the origins of Western theater. Saturday, April 11, 2009.
Olympic Flame Lighting. 2008 (Part 1/5 The Procession). The lighting of the Olympic Flame at Ancient Olympia for the Beijing 2008 Olympic Games. Procession with Greek commentary. April 11, 2009.
The Persians: An Analysis of the Play by Aeschylus. April 13, 2009.
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