Greek Tragedies in a Modern World
*Works Cited Not Included
From the times of Aristotle to modern day Boal people have tried to come up with a definition of tragedy that encompasses all of the works they feel to be tragedies. However, there are always a few exceptions to their rules that make their thesis insubstantial. Those who define tragedies all have different elements that they say are necessary in classifying something as a tragedy. Unfortunately for us, no one definition has ever been settled upon that everyone agrees with. The one factor that does seem to be present in every interpretation of what is necessary in a tragedy is the catharsis that is brought up in the viewer. Without that emotional reaction, whether of pity, empathy, sympathy, or perturbation, a work never seems to be classified as a tragedy. O'Neill wrote Desire Under the Elms borrowing themes from the myths of Phaedra, Medea, and Oedipus. He was trying to create a Greek tragedy in the setting of his time. Racine wrote Phedre in classic Greek style, attempting to create a Greek tragedy that had been written in the modern day. Both of these plays sought to entwine the modern world with Greek tragedies. While they each have distinctly different ways of accomplishing their goal of writing a modern Greek tragedy, they are both tragedies in their own way and bring about the similar effect of Catharsis.
Jean Racine wrote Phedre based on the Greek myth of queen Phaedra, wife of Theseus, who lusted after her stepson and, when he rejected her love, accused him of raping her and hung herself. Because of her accusation Theseus cursed his son which resulted in his death. While Racine sets the play in Troezen and kept it in its original era, he changed...
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...dre and Desire Under the Elms are derived from Greek tragedies, they take very different approaches to creating a modern-day Greek tragedy. While one sets the play in Greek times and adheres to the formal requirements, the other goes for the effect that Aristotle says tragedy should induce. There is no doubt that they should both be considered tragedies, if for no other reason than that they both fulfill requirements that have been set for tragedies. While they may fulfill different requirements, the essential effect of catharsis is achieved, to one degree or another, in both. By using different methods to achieve this catharsis, they would seem to be different types of tragedies; one Greek, one modern. The fact still remains that the plays do evoke emotions either of pity, sympathy, empathy, or perturbation, and because of this, deserve to be called tragedies.
The tradition of the tragedy, the renowned form of drama based on human suffering that invokes an accompanying catharsis, has principally become a discontinued art. Plays that evoke the sense of tragedy-the creations of Sophocles, Euripides, and William Shakespeare-have not been recreated often, nor recently due to its complex nature. The complexity of the tragedy is due to the plot being the soul of the play, while the character is only secondary. While the soul of the play is the plot, according to Aristotle, the tragic hero is still immensely important because of the need to have a medium of suffering, who tries to reverse his situation once he discovers an important fact, and the sudden downturn in the hero’s fortunes. Arthur Miller’s Death of a Salesman is the modern tragedy of a common man named Willy Loman, who, like Oedipus from Oedipus Rex by Sophocles, exhibits some qualities of a tragic hero. However, the character Willy Loman should not be considered a full-on tragic hero because, he although bears a comparable tragic flaw in his willingness to sacrifice everything to maintain his own personal dignity, he is unlike a true tragic hero, like Oedipus, because he was in full control of his fate where Oedipus was not.
Greek tragedies often teach readers several valuable lessons, one of which is the catastrophe caused by acting on emotions. Both Oedipus and Antigone experience this as a result of their rash behavior. Even Creon ends up miserable in Antigone due to the change in his behavior. By acting on their emotions, these characters all experience tragic downfalls, while others, such as Ismene and Creon during Oedipus Rex, remain safe due to their prudence and indications of wisdom.
Greek life in most people’s eyes is considered to be joining a sisterhood or brotherhood such as a sorority or a fraternity. Greek life is an extremely large part in numerous universities. More than half of the students are actually members of a Greek organization. Some may say that Greek life is not for them, but they truly do not know all of the advantages that come from being a member of a Greek organization. Do they realize how several of our nation’s leaders were members of Greek life probably not, since most of them were? One should join Greek life, not only for abundant friendships gained, but because of advantages, for example leadership skills and along with the countless networking
During the Ancient Grecian time periods, tragedy meant death because one defied against an outer prophecy. Modern day tragedy was simply realism, the unspoken way of life. In Sophocles' Oedipus the King and Ibsen's A Doll's House, the main characters - Nora and Oedipus, are both constructed to illustrate flaws in society and how naive people are. Ibsen and Sophocles both developed tragedy into a central idea that all people surreptitiously understand. Nora and Oedipus make incompetent decisions that assist in discovering their fundamental nature as tragic heroes and provoke sorrow and pity among the audience.
Ancient Greek tragedies, have placed the gods a scenes, hostile to each other or have them human emotions exhibited through them. Changing social structures, economic wealth and intellectual environment enriched expression in the first row were tragedies. With the human body, the feeling was on display. Gods descending from heaven to earth, was adding sovereignty conscious to the people. We see then that the next instance of the 1600-1700 year hiatus. Precisely as a comedy, as Marx said. Dante and Boccaccio's lyrical line was marked as a comedy. Human who can become a divine presence can easily come out god justifications _ could now easily pass through waves with it. Not only divine, an era of literary criticism, including social paradoxes
...ods come for the free drugs that he offers. Johnny is a man for whom we feel pride, shame and pity all at once but such a contradictory character would be unstable and unpredictable. Aristotle defines tragedy according to seven characteristics. These are that it is characterized by mimicry, it is serious, it expresses a full story of a relevant length, it contains rhythm and harmony, the rhythm and harmony occur in different combinations in different parts of the tragedy, it is performed not narrated and that it provokes feelings of pity and fear then purges these feelings through catharsis the purging of the emotions and emotional tensions. The composition of a tragedy consists of six segments. In order of relevance, these are plot, character, thought, diction, melody, and performance. For a comedy the ending must be merry. Instead Jerusalem ends in death.
The myth of Eurydice is a sad story in which two lovers are separated by death. After his love dies, Orpheus journeys into the underworld to retrieve her, but instead loses her for good. Playwright Sarah Ruhl takes the myth of Eurydice and attempts to transform this sad tale into a more light-hearted story. However, despite humorous lines and actions throughout the play, the melancholy situation of the actual tale overwhelms any comicality present. Although meant to be funny, Sarah Ruhl's “Eurydice” can be seen as a modernized tragedy about two lovers who are separated forever by a twist of fate.
Aristotle’s Poetics is a “reservoir of the themes and schemes deployed in ancient Greek tragedy and poetry” (Poetics iii). Written around 330 B.C., it was the first work of literature to make a distinction amongst the various literary genres and provide a proper analysis of them. In Poetics, Aristotle places a big emphasis on the genre of tragedy. When one hears of the word tragedy, one already assumes that something bad has occurred to an individual and an immediate emotion of sorrow occurs, but how does Aristotle see tragedy? Aristotle gives us his formal definition of tragedy on page 10: “Tragedy 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; through pity and fear effecting the proper purgation of these emotions.” He goes on and explains all the components that make up tragedy. A tragedy must fall into two parts: complication and unraveling (also known as the denouement). Aristotle elaborates on that and speaks of four types of tragedy: “the Complex, depending entirely on Reversal of the Situation and Recognition; the Pathetic (where the motive is passion); the Ethical (where the motives are ethical). The fourth kind is the Simple.
The Greeks considered tragedy the greatest form for literature. However, the tragic ends for the characters were not ordained or set by fate, but rather caused by certain characteristics belonging to that person. Such is the case with the characters of Sophocles' plays Oedipus the King and Antigone. Oedipus from King Oedipus, and Antigone and Creon from Antigone posses characteristics, especially pride, that caused their tragic ends. As the play progress, other characteristics appear and further add to the problem to such a point that it is inevitable that it will end in tragedy. Therefore the tragedies were not a result of a plot by the fates, but rather a result of the characteristics that the characters possessed.
According to Aristotle, a tragedy must be an imitation of life in the form of a serious story that is complete in itself among many other things. Oedipus is often portrayed as the perfect example of what a tragedy should be in terms of Aristotle’s Poetics. Reason being that Oedipus seems to include correctly all of the concepts that Aristotle describes as inherent to dramatic tragedy. These elements include: the importance of plot, reversal and recognition, unity of time, the cathartic purging and evocation of pity and fear, the presence of a fatal flaw in the “hero”, and the use of law of probability.
In Aristotle’s book, Poetics, he defines tragedy as, “an imitation of an action that is serious, complete, and possessing magnitude; in embellished language, each kind of which is used separately in the different parts; in the mode of action and not narrated; and effecting through pity and fear” (Aristotle 1149). Tragedy creates a cause and effect chain of actions that clearly gives the audience ideas of possible events. The six parts to Aristotle’s elements of tragedy are: Plot, character, language, thought, spectacle, and melody. According to Aristotle, the most important element is the plot. Aristotle writes in Poetics that, “It is not for the purpose of presenting their characters that the agents engage in action, but rather it is for the sake of their actions that they take on the characters they have” (Aristotle 1150). Plots should have a beginning, middle, and end that have a unity of actions throughout the play making it complete. In addition, the plot should be complex making it an effective tragedy. The second most important element is character. Characters...
The tragedy was a large part of people's lives in ancient Greece. Tragedies became prominent long before Christ was born. A tragedy, or goat-song, usually were seen during festivals in ancient Greek times. Tragedies gradually increased in seriousness until they were given utmost importance. Greek tragedies began at a festival in honor of a god, there were three great tragic authors, and all tragedies include a tragic situation.
Euripides (485-406 BC) is considered a paramount tragedian from Ancient Greek culture. In Medea, Euripides depicts tragedy in an epic play both genders could partake in at that time by signifying drama. To Euripides, tragedy is a revolunatary form of speech to writing, intertwining too cultivate barbaric motifs of dystopian structure in literature. In dystopian Ancient Greek tragedian literature Euripides used powerful theatrical form of art to show everything being unpleasant or in bad standing to Athenian audiences. As the narrator begins to captivate the audience, he separates’ the performance into different episodes where Medea, actors play individuals’ roles, and a chorus of woman whom sings and dance as a group.
According to Aristotle, the importance of tragedy as a genre is to represent action. Thus unity of action purportedly has the strongest implications for the effectiveness of the work itself. Aristotle posits “a story, since it is the representation of action, should concern an action that is single and entire, with its several incidents so structured that the displacement or removal of any one of them would disturb and dislocate the whole.” (Aristotle 27) and deems this claim imperative. A good plot, and thereby an effective tragedy, does not include events, which are not connected to each other or specifically the main plot. In theory, these unconnected events are distracting from the main action and dissipate the tragic effect. With Aristotle’s definition, no sub-plot should exist in tragedy. For all events to be “necessary or [have] probable connection with each other.” (Aristotle 27) none should exist not directly related to the main action. Again, unity allows for the tragic effect to be concentrated, intending to allow for increased feelings of pity and
There are distinct differences between the theories outlined within Aristotle’s Poetics and Bharata’s The Nāṭyaśāstra which both attempt to elaborate upon the audience relationship and the phenomenon produced relating to the theatrical experience. However, despite the dissimilarities there are components of catharsis and rasa that share common elements and ideas surrounding the creation and the effects of these experiences. Aristotle contends the cathartic nature of tragedy aids in purgation of emotion, however ultimately limiting it to the powers of tragedy as only creating this, where, contrarily, The Nāṭyaśāstra outlines the power any actor has in creating bhāva, leading to rasa. Whilst both theories do have common attributes in their aims of heightening an audience experience, it is the differentiating that outcomes that greatly affect their overall influence.