The History of Greek Theater :: Art

The History of Greek TheaterTheater and drama in Ancient Greece took form in about 5th century BCE, with the Sopocles, the abundant writer of tragedy. In his plays and those of the same genre, hero sandwiches and the ideals of life were depicted and glorified. It was believed that man should conk out for honor and fame, his action was courageous and glorious and his life would climax in a great and noble death. Originally, the heros recognition was created by selfish behaviors and little thought of service to others. As the Greeks grew toward city-states and colonization, it became the destiny and competition of the hero to gain honor by serving his city. The second study componentistic of the early Greek world was the supernatural. The two worlds were not separate, as the gods lived in the same world as the men, and they interfered in the mens lives as they chose to. It was the gods who sent suffering and evil to men. In the plays of Sophocles, the gods brought about the hero s downfall because of a tragic flaw in the character of the hero. In Greek tragedy, suffering brought knowledge of worldly matters and of the individual. Aristotle attempted to pardon how an audience could observe tragic events and still have a agreeable experience. Aristotle, by searching the take a craps of writers of Greek tragedy, Aeschulus, Euripides and Sophocles (whose Oedipus Rex he considered the finest of all Greek tragedies), arrived at his definition of tragedy. This explanation has a profound influence for much than twenty centuries on those writing tragedies, nearly significantly Shakespeare. Aristotles analytic thinking of tragedy began with a description of the effect such a work had on the audience as a catharsis or oppress of the emotions. He decided that catharsis was the purging of two specific emotions, grieve and fear. The hero has made a mistake due to ignorance, not because of shadow or corruption. Aristotle used the word hamartia, which is the tragi c flaw or offense committed in ignorance. For example, Oedipus is ignorant of his true parentage when he commits his fatal deed. Oedipus Rex is one of the stories in a three-part myth called the Thebian cycle. The structure of most all Greek tragedies is similar to Oedipus Rex. Such plays are divided in to five parts, the prologue or introduction, the prados or entrance of the chorus, four episode or acts separates from one another by stasimons or choral odes, and exodos, the action later on the last stasimon.