Wait a second!
More handpicked essays just for you.
More handpicked essays just for you.
Reasons for Greek victory and Persian defeat during the Persian Wars
The Concept Of Modern Tragedy
Persian and Greece war
Don’t take our word for it - see why 10 million students trust us with their essay needs.
Where did tragedy originate, and who decided that killing the main characters of a play was best way to communicate his plot? Tragedy was invented by the Greeks long ago. In the fourth year of the sixty-third Olympiad, or 525 B.C., the first great tragic playwright was born (“Aeschylus”). The playwright's name was Aeschylus, son of Euphorion ("Aeschylus"), and he wrote about ninety plays, though the number is uncertain, seven of which have withstood the tests of time (Kopff). His works have been incredible to the point that he earned the title "Father of Tragedy" (Kopff).
How did Aeschylus write such great tragedies? He looked at his surroundings in the world. His world was in Athens, Greece, and he saw the beginning of democracy, which came to be a theme of The Oresteia (Kopff). In the government in Athens, white males could be citizens with rights to vote. However, the Persians attempted a takeover of Athens, among other Greek city-states, and Aeschylus abandoned his work as a tragic poet to fight for the Greeks. Athens was one of only four cities to refuse to submit to the Persians, who were then provoked to attack at Marathon, outnumbering the Greeks three to one (Lacey 44). In a battle that shocked everyone, the Greeks pulled through and won the battle (Lacey 44). Thereafter, the Greeks who fought at Marathon were known as "hard as oak" (Lacey 44). The Greek continued to win battles at Salamis and Plataea, and they continued to shock everyone (Lacey 44). After the Persian War, the Greeks proposed one and only one explanation for their seemingly inexplicable victory: the Persians were not tough enough to fight (Lacey 45). Soon enough, this idea developed into the stereotype that the Persians are "those soft sons of luxury,"...
... middle of paper ...
...bly saw in the Persian war to develop his imagery and the stereotype of the Persians. However, he also contributed the most to the development of tragedy, which, in turn, influenced William Shakespeare to write his masterpieces. Aeschylus is responsible for an everlasting mark on the world of theater.
Works Cited
“Aeschylus and His Tragedies.” Theatrehistory.com. Web. 17 March 2014.
Flickinger, Roy C. The Greek Theater and Its Drama. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1918. Print.
Kopff, E. Christian. “Aeschylus.” Gale Virtual Reference Library. Gale Group, 2014. Web. 31 March 2014.
Lacey, Jim. “The Persian Fallacy.” Military History 29.2 (2012): 42-51. OmniFile Full Text Select (H.W. Wilson). Web. 31 March 2014.
Ley, Graham. Ancient Greek Theater. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1991. Print.
A few of Euripides's most famous tragedies are Hippolytus, The Bacchae, Alcestis, and Medea. He displayed his first set of tragedies at the Great Dionysia in 455 B.C., but did not win his first award until 441. In fact, he won only five awards and the fifth of these was announced subsequent to his death. Medea won 3rd prize, Alcestis won second as well as The Trojan Women. Iphigenia at Aulis, Bacchae, and Hippolytus took 1st place. The Cyclops, the only complete satyr play that exists, was written early in Euripides' career. It is a funny version of Odysseus' encounter with the one-eyed beast, Polyphemus. And although this spirit of faith is difficult to recognize in many of Euripides' later plays, it never entirely fades. A few of his dramas, such as Helena, comes close to being a comedy. Even in The Bacchae, he mixes comedy with tragic. Thus, by dissolving the rigid structure of tragedy, Euripides created new forms of drama, as well as hybrids of existing
* Scully, J & Herington, C.J., Aeschylus: Prometheus Bound (Oxford University Press, New York 1975)
1 Aeschylus, The Oresteia: A New Translation for the Theatre, Translated by David Grene and Wendy Doniger-O'Flaherty (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1989).
Oedipus, by Sophocles, was written around 441 B.C. Sophocles’ story is considered a Greek tragedy. Aeschylus is the person who coined the term, but “it was Sophocles who brought it to perfection” (Struck). Oedipus is one of the most famous classical dramas, and it is because of Aristotle the story reached that status. Aristotle stated his opinions in his book Poetics, which made it popular (Thorburne 384). In the story, Oedipus displays hubris when he defies the gods and runs away from his true fate which leads to his downfall.
Most readers are aware of the many famous deaths or acts of death within the Shakespearean plays. And when the main characters die in Shakespeare’s plays, indeed, the readers would categorize the play as a tragedy. The problem with any tragedy definition is that most tragic plays do not define the tragedy conditions explained or outlined by Aristotle. According to Telford (1961), a tragedy is a literary work that describes the downfall of an honorable, main character who is involved on historically or socially significant events. The main character, or tragic hero, has a tragic fault, the quality that leads to his or her own destruction. In reading Aristotle’s point of view, a tragedy play is when the main character(s) are under enormous pressure and are incapable to see the dignities in human life, which Aristotle’s ideas of tragedy is based on Oedipus the King. Shakespeare had a different view of tragedy. In fact, Shakespeare believed tragedy is when the hero is simply and solely destroyed. Golden (1984) argued the structure of Shakespearean tragedy would be that individual characters revolved around some pain and misery.
Have you ever wondered what life was like before technology? The playwrights of ancient Greece had to do all that work without wikianswers. Ancient Greek Theatre was a big and celebrated occasion in that time period. The Ancient Greek play by Aeschylus, The Persians, was greatly influenced by the culture as well as the economic status of Greece, and the political leaders at the time.
Virgil. “The Aeneid, Book IV”. The Norton Anthology of Western Literature. 8th ed. Vol. 1. New York: W.W. Norton, 2006. 974-95. Print.
Many people seem to be under the impression that the Aeneid is a celebration of Roman glory, led by the hero of fate Aeneas. I find these preconceived ideas hard to reconcile with my actual reading of the text. For starters, I have a hard time viewing Aeneas as a hero at all. Almost any other main characters in the epic, from Dido to Camilla to Turnus, have more heroic qualities than Aeneas. This is especially noteworthy because many of these characters are his enemies. In addition, Aeneas is presented as a man with no free will. He is not so much bound to duty as he is shielded by it. It offers a convenient way for hum to dodge crucial moral questions. Although this doesn’t necessarily make him a bad person, it certainly makes him a weak one. Of course some will argue that it takes greater moral conviction to ignore personal temptation and act for the good of the people. These analysts are dodging the issue just like Aeneas does. The fact is that Aeneas doesn’t just sacrifice his own personal happiness for the common good; he also sacrifices the past of the Trojan people, most notably when he dishonors the memory of his fallen city by becoming the men he hated most, the Greek invaders. The picture of Aeneas as seen in the end of the Aeneid bears some sticking resemblances to his own depiction of the savage and treacherous Greeks in the early books.
The peloponnesian war was a difficult time for the people of Athens. Along with the general discomforts of war, the Athenians also experienced famine, disease, and political unrest. These factors influenced Aristophanes during his productions of Lysistrata and Acharnians. When performed Aristophanes made sure to include some political agenda lines as well as some comedy so as to keep it light. This form was used to undermine the support of democracy in Athens by showing the audience the folly of the current system and in places propose how it could be different.
Lawall, Sarah N. “The Aeneid.” The Norton Anthology of Western Literature. 8th ed. Vol. 1. New York: W.W. Norton, 2006. 612-652. Print.
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.
Greek Drama had three main categories The Comedy, Satyr Plays, and The Tragedy. The most popular of the three is The Tragedy, its themes are often such as loss of love, complex relationships between men and the gods, and corruption of power. These dramas taught the people of the city the difference between good and bad behavior and the ramifications of going against the gods. According to Aristotle, the perfect tragedy consisted of the downfall of the hero through a great misunderstanding, causing suffering and awareness for the protagonist meanwhile making the audience feel pity and fear. The prominent writer who Aristotle based his perfect tragedy theory was Sophocles, his drama Oedipus the King had all the elements of a perfect tragedy.
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...
In Greek tragedy, three masters were paramount. They were Aeschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides. These three playwrights all wrote for the festivals of Dionysius, but none of the three were alike. Aeschylus writes about Athenian power, arrogance, and ancient rule. Sophocles accepts the gods as the way they are. He does not believe in the violation of cosmic order. Euripides questions spirit. He also faults the old way of doing things.
In 350 B.C.E., a great philosopher wrote out what he thought was the definition of a tragedy. As translated by S.H. Butcher, Aristotle wrote; “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, Thought, Diction, Spectacle, Melody. (http://www.cnr.edu/home/bmcmanus/poetics.html)” Later in history, William Shakespeare wrote tragedies that epitomized Aristotle’s outline of a tragedy. Shakespeare’s Hamlet is one such tragedy.