The Birds and The Frogs, written by Aristophanes, show a strong dichotomy between the pragmatic and romantic. This dichotomy is prominent in both stories because it voices a perspective on the evolution of Greek culture. Although written for entertainment, many of the punchlines refer to the real life triumphs and crises of Greece. For example; both plays were written during the 4th Century BCE, during which, Athens was on the brink of war with Sparta. The crisis in Athens is used as a plot point in both plays, with many characters desperately trying to find a way to resolve this conflict or run away from it. This relates back to the dichotomy. In The Birds, the characters of Pisthetairos and Euelpides start off with the intention of running away from the possible destruction of Athens. They represent the pragmatist who decide face this possible reality. In The Frogs, the satirized version of real life Greek poet, Aeschylus, is obsessed with idealizing Greece, and believes that Athens can save itself from despair. He is represents the romantic who refuses to face this possible reality.Although both perceptions are subjective, both plays depict those who have this idealistic and impractical attitude, are the ones who actually succeed in their objectives. These characters triumph because of their obsession with preserving these romantic concepts instead of accepting a more realistic perception. This leads the character to be resolute.
In The Frogs, the agon is used, in order to convey a political commentary on how pragmatism in Athens is useless. The agon is a debate or formal argument constructed as a 'symmetrical scene', with two declaimed sections and two songs. The protagonist generally defeats the antagonist in the ...
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... fight and innovate to the end even when hopelessly outnumbered.
Both plays favor the romantic over the pragmatic for the sole purpose of spreading a message that supports the imperialistic and boundless audacity of Athenian aspiration. With the historical context of Athens during the 3rd and 4th Century, the references and decisions made by characters become much more clear, making The Birds and The Frogs appear less like comedies and more like social commentaries on contemporary Athens. Trying to convince readers of this romantic ideology believing it will strengthen them. Although both plays glorify this ideology, it’s detriments are apparent. Pisthetairos gains power over the universe but loses his friend Euelpides, and much of his rationality. Aeschylus provided Dionysus with an idea but no plan. Idealism brings ambition but can’t guarantee triumph.
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A Greek drama is a series of actions within a literary presentation in which the chief character has a disastrous fate. Many Greek dramas fall under the theatrical category of a tragedy due to the tragic events and unhappy ending that cause the downfall of the main character. During the famous play “Antigone” the Greek author Sophocles incorporated several features of a tragedy. These features include a morally significant dilemma and the presence of a tragic hero. The grand debate over which character can hold the title of the tragic hero has been discussed in the literary world for ages.
Oedipus Rex and Antigone & nbsp; There is no curse in the house of Oedipus. Because of the many terrible things that happen to the members of Oedipus's family, a reader might be led to believe that there is such a curse. However, if that person examines the stories of Oedipus Rex and Antigone more closely, he or she will find that the reason so many tragedies happened to Oedipus's family is not because of some curse, but rather because of one common thread. Each person in the line of Oedipus tries to defy authority in one way or another.
Antigone is a play about the tension caused when two individuals have conflicting claims regarding law. In this case, the moral superiority of the laws of the city, represented by Creon, and the laws of the gods, represented bt Antigone. In contrast, Oedipus The King is driven by the tensions within Oedipus himself. That play both begins and concludes within the public domain, the plot being driven by the plague that troubles the city, and which is so graphically brought to life by the Priest. In both Antigone (ll179-82) and Oedipus The King (ll29-31) the city is likened to a storm tossed ship, and it cannot be merely coincidence that Oedipus The King was written at the beginning of the Peloponnesian War, a time when Athens itself was suffering the effects of plague. Oedipus The King reaches its climax with a now blinded Oedipus daring to show himself to the people of Thebes, forgetting that he is no longer the leader of the state. In Antigone, it is Creons abuse of absolute power that leads to his tragic downfall. Whilst Oedipus determinedly tried to get to the root of his peoples ills, ultimately discovering that he was in fact the cause of them, Creon morphs from a supposedly caring leader into a tyrannical despot, eager to take the law into his own hands. It is the actions of Antigone that helps to bring about Creons fall from grace, as her steadfast refusal to accept th...
Aristophanes denounces the importance of the gods' influence on the actions of mortals. In the usual tragedy, the gods play an extremely important role towards the actions of the mortal characters. Through fear of the alternative and examples of the past, Athenians carried out their everyday lives under the guidance of the gods' wishes. Aristophanes challenges the audience, and Greek culture as a whole, by offering a different view on the answers and directions of life, than that of the gods. He denounces the parables and explanations to answers in life that involve the gods. Instead he explains that such things as the aerial whirlwind, and especially the clouds, are the reasoning behind all of natures actions. On the surface these comments were seen as a mockery and very humorous. Underlying this humor is a scary truth, most likely ignored by the congregations witnessing this play. How many times has a character in a tragedy been so willing to contradict the gods? Dominant characters like Creon and Prometheus have blatantly disobeyed the gods. The alternative explanations serve a hidden truth in the hearts of many of the Athenian people. This truth is always again repressed by the end of each play, tragedy or comedy; because their was too great of a fear to upset the higher beings.
The name “Oedipus” means “swollen feet” in Latinized Greek. His parents, Laius and Jocasta, gave him this name while piercing a metal rod through the ankles of his feet, in order to prevent the fulfilment of the oracle’s prophecy. Despite this heinous act, their efforts were in vain as Oedipus’ free will conquered the theme of fate. In the play Oedipus Rex by Sophocles, the tragic hero, Oedipus, demonstrates hamartia, a fatal error in judgement, which brings about his own downfall. It was Oedipus’ hubris that was responsible for the tragic ending of this play. Evidence of this statement occurs when Oedipus’ determination towards solving the mystery behind Laius’ death ironically lead to the truth behind the oracle’s prophecies. Additionally, Oedipus’ overweening pride and ego resulted in the murder of Laius, which was a major stepping-stone in the prophecy. He illustrates his error in judgment through his pride, blindness, and foolishness and therefore is at fault.
In Euripides’ play The Bacchae, the ideals that were the foundation of Greek culture were called into question. Until early 400B.C.E. Athens was a society founded upon rational thinking, individuals acting for the good of the populace, and the “ideal” society. This is what scholars commonly refer to as the Hellenic age of Greek culture. As Athens is besieged by Sparta, however, the citizens find themselves questioning the ideals that they had previously lived their lives by. Euripides’ play The Bacchae shows the underlying shift in ideology of the Greek people from Hellenic (or classical), to Hellenistic; the god character Dionysus will be the example that points to the shifting Greek ideology.
In the Symposium, a most interesting view on love and soul mates are provided by one of the characters, Aristophanes. In the speech of Aristophanes, he says that there is basically a type of love that connects people. Aristophanes begins his description of love by telling the tale of how love began. He presents the tale of three sexes: male, female, and a combination of both. These three distinct sexes represented one’s soul. These souls split in half, creating a mirror image of each one of them. Aristophanes describes love as the search for the other half of your soul in this quote: “When a man’s natural form was split in two, each half went round looking for its other half. They put their arms around one another, and embraced each other, in their desire to grow together again. Aristophanes theme is the power of Eros and how not to abuse it.
In Aristophanes’ speech, which primarily takes the form of a myth, he weaves together comical elements with undertones of sadness that serve to create a profound account of what Eros is. The speech describes humans as combined creatures who, after being separated, are filled with longing. These beings spend the remainder of their lives, in a sometimes futile attempt, combating this feeling of longing by searching for the individual that can make them one again. Aristophanes describes Eros as a remedy for this overwhelming emotion. He uses his story to make Eros an entity that acts in tandem with individuals wishing to be whole. As a result, Eros ultimately serves as a guide that allows humans to bring about their original feeling of completion,
Aeschylus, was a master dramatist - he liked to portray conflict between persons, human or divine, or between principles.1 His trilogy of plays, the Oresteia, develops many conflicts that must be resolved during the action of the Eumenides, the concluding play of the trilogy. The central theme of the Oresteia is justice (dike) and in dealing with questions of justice, Aeschylus at every stage involves the gods.2 The Oresteia's climactic conflict in the Eumenides revolves around justice and the gods - opposing conceptions of justice and conflicting classes of gods. This essay will describe and discuss these conflicts and, more importantly, the manner in which they are resolved so that the play, and indeed the entire trilogy, might reach a satisfactory conclusion.
...and the contemporary political situation into the familiar mythological saga of Oedipus. He does this not in the form of a manifesto or a public speech, but in a stage play, widely viewed and enjoyed by Athenian citizens. These underlying themes allow audience members to deeply connect to what initially seems like an alien world and allows for a more enjoyable experience for those who perceived and understood these themes. He tailored the play to the age and the audience and managed to successfully create a popular text that is still studied today for its literary merit and historical importance.
The play was considered comic by the ancient Athenians because of its rhyming lyricism, its song and dance, its bawdy puns, but most of all because the notion and methods of female empowerment conceived in the play were perfectly ridiculous. Yet, as is the case in a number of Aristophanes’ plays, he has presented an intricate vision of genuine human crisis. In true, comic form Aristophanes superficially resolves the play’s conflicts celebrating the absurdity of dramatic communication. It is these loose threads that are most rife with tragedy for modern reader. By exploring an ancient perspective on female domesticity, male political and military power, rape, and efforts to maintain the integrity of the female body, we can liberate our modern dialogue.
In Plato’s Theaetetus, Socrates examines the first definition of knowledge that theaetetus gives that knowledge is perception. Socrates gives us many example that both supports and refutes that knowledge is perception. The basic claim from Protagoras is that truth is based on the perception of every man. This means that things are to any person as they seem to that person. Socrates explains to us Protagoras’s view with the cold wind example. He say that through Protagoras theory, the wind is cold to the person that feels cold, and the wind is warm to the person that feels warm. Both “the wind is cold” and “the wind is war” is true according to Protagoras and it is based on the perception of the person. Then we learn from Socrates that if knowledge and truth is based on perception then everything that has perception has his own set of knowledge and truth. Also sense Protagoras not considering himself to be a god, and is on the same level of us then wouldn’t the truth and knowledge he definite in his doctrine only be his own set truth and knowledge for he only knows his own perspective.
Throughout the play love is used by Euripides as a key plot factor and in many ways sets the outcome of the play. This love was definitely based on a physical attraction between a male and a female, thus making it “Common” love. The fact that Euripides uses “Common” love lends credibility to Pausanias’ philosophical ideas. The appearance of this idea suggests that it had realistic roots. . The events that took place in the play, such as the relationship between Phaedra and Hippolytus, must have been realistic so a Greek audience would believe the story. Even though Hippolytus is a fictional play the events that take place must have their roots in realistic events. This allows us to believe that Pausanias’ philosophical ideal was in fact a real life issue that Athenians dealt with in day-to-day life.
One may argue that the Greek playwright, Sophocles modeled his play Oedipus Rex on Aristotle's definition and analysis of tragedy. Since according to Aristotle's definition, a tragedy is an imitation of action that is serious, complete and of a certain magnitude; in language embellished artistic ornaments, the several kinds being found in separate parts of the play; in the form of action, not narrative with incidents that evokes pity and fear of a persons emotions. Also Aristotle identified the basic six parts a tragedy as being plot, character, thought, melody, diction and spectacle which he considered the least important. Therefore the controversy of Sophocles modeling his play Oedipus Rex on Aritotle's analysis of tragedy can be argued out since the play Oedipus Rex is a classic Aristotelian tragedy. However this conception is totally fallacious since it is a well known fact that Aristotle lived a century after Sophocles.