Development of the Tragedy: The Wooden Horse, Keld Zeruneith -- First Note

During the Golden Age of Greece (450 - 400 BCE) two new forms of poetry were introduced: the dithyramb and tragic drama. 

Festivals included dithrambic choruses celebrating Greek heroes (as told by Homer and Hesiod); these choruses gradually evolved into one-man, two-man, and ultimately three-man tragedies. The tragedy was uniquely Athenian. 

The three great Athenian tragedians were Aeschylus, Sophocles, and Eripides. 

Aristotle wrote of the "ideal form" of tragedy. The myth became the centerpiece of these tragedies, but it was the presocratic philosophers who provided much of the inspiration for the tragedians. Over time, the tragedy became associated with the cult of Dionysos, and although this  might be a minor point in the overall history of the tragedy, it is important to understand the Dionysian background to fully understand the development of the tragedy.

This particular blog posting is a work in progress.  For me, this is really, really cool. I was always envious (if that is the right word) that my college freshman roommate memorized and loved Greek plays. If there is a gap in my education it is with Greek plays, Greek philosophers, physics and, in biology, the sponges and cnidarians. Smile.

So, this is really, really cool. For the first time I understand why Homer was so important; how Greek philosophers influenced Greek tragedy; how tragedy was born; how Greek philosophers influence Judeao-Christian beliefs. It is really incredible.

I remember, vaguely, reading a biography of Pericles when I might have been in eighth grade (about 14 years old). It was not assigned reading; I probably read it during the summer. I was fascinated by and in love with "adult" books from the "real" library, not the children's library, across the street from my middle school, which we called "Junior High."

These notes are for my own use, but who knows? Maybe they will stimulate someone else to read the book on which most of this posting is based. Many of the full sentences and long passages are direclty from the book, so don't use these notes for your essays without citing the author (Keld Zeruneith).

I am using Keld Zeruneith's The Wooden Horse to put together my understanding of the development of the tragedy.

 History

Golden Age of Greece: 448 BCE to 404 BCE (or fifty years, 450 - 400 BCE)

• 448 BCE: end of the Persian Wars
• 429 BCE death of Pericles
• 404 BCE: end of the Peloponnesian War (Athens vs Sparta)

Four tribes made up Classical Greece during the Golden age: Dorians, Ionians, Aeolians, and Aeachians

Peisistratus: c. 590 - 527

• Tyrant: popular. (tyrant: a single ruler with a non-heritable position; taken entirely by personal ability often in violation of tradition or constitutional norms)
• Instituted the Panathenaic Festival
• First attempt to produce a definitive version of the Homeric epics
• Tried to distribute power and benefits

• Four tribes --> ten demes; abolished surnames
• The elites, who held power in the Areopagus Council, were allowed to keep their archonships

• Under his rule, two new forms of poetry introduced: dithyramb and tragic drama
• Saw the growth of the theater, arts and sculpture
• Commissioned the permanent copying and archiving of Homer's two epic poems
• The canon of Homeric works said to derive from the particular archiving
• Son, Hippias, ruled like his father, but paranoid and oppressive after murder plot against his brother

Cleisthenes: c. 500 - 470 -- moved to democracy and introduced the concept of ostracism.

• Helped establish a democracy based on the overturned reforms of Solon
• Expanded the four traditional tribes (based on family names) into ten tribes based on geographical location; abolished surnames; referred to be their demes (area of residence)
• Estimated to have 139 demes (areas of residence)
• True democracy principles put in place (legislators chosen by lottery)
• Introduced ostracism
• Disappears from history shortly after instituting these reforms: ostracized?

Greek Poets and Presocratic Philosophers

Homer:700 BCE, aristocratic, heroic values

Hesiod: 700 BCE, agrarian values, possible a cousin of Homer's

• Competed at Euboea
• Theogeny: catalogue of the gods
• Works and Days: poetry begins in earnest to express experience on a subjective basis

Archilochus: 650 BCE, warrior poet

• Born on island of Paros
• Would not risk his life for external honor

Sappho: 612 BCE, the "10th muse"

• Contemporary of Alkaeus, also of Lesbos
• Among females, the equal of Homer
• 10 books
• Like Archilochus: follows her passion; that's why she liked Helen
• Created a special metrical unit: the so-called Sapphic strophe

Thales: 600 BCE, born in Egypt

• Beginning of natural philosophy
• Attempts to create comprehensible and at least partially exhaustive cosmology
• If he did study in Egypt, explains Presocratic philosophy
• Presocratic philosophy did not spring out of thin air -- preceded by Oriental philosophy
• For Thales: water -- the fundamental material of creation

Anaximander: 619 - 545 BCE (dying at age 64)

• The primary exponent for breakout out of an entire new / exact world of science
• Prose: first to write his book in prose!
• Rejected the notion that water was fundamental material of creation
• Replaced it with aperion (beginning); ~ arche -- beginning (p. 314)

Xenophanes: b. 570 BCE; Colophon, Asia Minor 

• Founded important school of philosophy at Elea, southern Italy
• Represents an essential step forward toward the recognition of the meaning of inner experience of the world
• Rejected the anthropomorphic conception of the gods

Heraclitus: b. 545; Ephesus, Ionia (born the year Anaximander died)

• Zeld's favorite philosopher of this group
• May have been a student of Xanaphanes
• Develops his own quite personal philosophical ideas
• Heir to royalty; gave it to his brother
• Considered obscure
• Lived away from the city to ensure "his own" ideas
• "Like a disciple of Jesus or the Gnostics, the individual seeking insight must break away from his parents, i.e., from the entrenched prejudice of tradition." (p. 317)
• An elitist
• Logos: developed by Heraclius; the insight the wise man acquires by virtue of his own inner conscious order
• Disliked Homer, Hesiod, also his slightly oder contemporary: Pythagoras
• They (Pythagoras/Heraclitus) differed on their vision of the soul (p. 323)

Parmenides: b. 515 BCE

• May have been a student of Xenophanes (like Heraclius)
• May have conversed with the younger Socrates (as Plato says)
• Argues the opposite of Xenophanes
• Argues that the external, objective world is illusory
• His philosophy written in hexameter poem
• Denies the reality of the senses

Empedocles: b. 400 BCE

• Compiler and epitomizer
• Rhetorician, physician, philospher
• Admired and closely connected to Parmenides
• First to put together the four basic elements: water, air, fire
• Thales: water
• Heraclitus: fire
• Anaximenes: air
• Empedocles: earth
• Empedocles: these form the causes of the world's beginning
• Two basic driving forces: love and strife
• Anthropomorphizes these forces as Aphrodite and Ares
• Mythical thinking still had hold on these philosophers
• Cyclical: love and strife
• Inspiration may have come form Pythagoras

[Pythagoras: b. 570; Ionian, Samos Island]

Tragedy

"Athens greatest contribution to world literature was surely to bring tragedy to perfection."

"A new genre will arise from an existential and social need at a given historical point to work through and interpret existing reality."  [A new genre arises when a need arises to work through/interpret existing reality.]

But even Aristotle, who lived about 150 year after the development of the tragedy: there was uncertainty that surrounded the rise of the epic.

Originally short stories, satire. Then, the return of the epic, a centrifying mythical plot, with music and dance, an integral choreographic and dramatic constituent element.

Tragedy:

• Form: developed from the Dionysian dithyramb
• Content: derived from myth, especially Homer's

Comedy: from komai ("outlying hamlet") 

• Outlying hamlets were called demes, according to Aristotle.

Incredibly: Aristotle does not mention Arion, the 7th century poet who first imbued the dithyrambic choruses with the character of the tragedy

Dithyrambic is an adjective that means passionately eloquent, wildly enthusiastic, or resembling a wild, ancient choral hymn.

Tragedy: a remarkable return to myth

The Dorians in the Peloponnesus originated the tragedy. 

The Dorians were one of four Greek tribes at this time The other Greek tribes were the Ionians (Crete, Asia Minor), Archaeans (along with the Danaas, the two oldest Greek tribes), and Aeolians (Thessaly; most powerful and numerous).

Herodotus: the first dithyrambic chorus was first arranged by the tyrant Periandros in Corinth,while the connection with the cult of Dionysos arose when the tyrant of Sicyon transferred the tragic chorus of the hero cult to the worship of Dionysos. In Athens, tradition has it that the first names tragedian Thespis won a prize for tragedy (~ 534 BCE) under Peisistratos.

Socrates: "Homer seems to have been the first teacher and beginner of all these beauties of tragedy"

The genres of epic and tragedy connect with each other beneath all other forms of literature that had arisen in the meantime.

Homer, epic: sought to convert aristocratic and heroic ideals into peaceful values.

Myth redivivus (the tragedy): sought to formulate a new set of rules for democratic citizens of Athens.

The philosophers above had tried to tone down the mythical and the heroic -- now the tragedians returned to myth and the heroic age.

Now: competitions among tragedies were held in the honor of the deity of the Great Dionysia in Athens!

Another connects Dionysia with birth of tragedy.

Improvisation.

Comedy: originated with phallic songs.

Tragedy: originated with the authors of the dithyramb
Dithyramb: formed part of the essence of the genre

Dithyramb: connected with the birth of Dionysos -- indirectly makes it a song of birth and initiation.

See Euripedes, The Bacchae, Dionysos, dithyramb -- p. 330 (Greek, Bacchus; Latin, Dionysos)

Tragedy seriously began to develop as an independent genre on the basis of the dithyrambic choral  lyric during the role of the tyrant Peisistratos, who along with the Eleusinian Mysteries, incorporated Dionysos into the religious life of the state. In this way, he could accommodate the general public's worship of the god and bring the Dionysian intoxication, which washed over Hellas like a wave, under control. See p. 331 for birth of tragedy under Peisistratos.

Euripedes' The Bacchae: the only extant tragedy about Dionysos and his distinctive features.

Dionysos: byname of Dithyrambos due to myth that he was born twice -- by his mother Semele, a Theban princess, and his father Zeus. Myth has it that Hera tricked Zeus into launching a lightning bolt that killed Semele, but not before Dionysos was safety delivered.

The Tragedians

Aeschylus: sets the foundation

• Shapes tragedy and establishes the norms around sophrosyne and piety necessary for citizens to display
• Action and reflection not clearly separated
• Credited with introducing a second actor
• Some say he also introduced the third actor, but Aristotle says he took that from Eripides
• Trilogies; the other two did away with trilogies; too much like epics, ponderous
• The Persians: oldest play that has survived; based on Athens victory over Persia's Xerxes, Salamis
• Oresteia

Sophocles: the poet of piety

• Oedipus: becomes psychologically conscious of his identity through an unraveling of his earlier history. But, man was still powerless before the gods.
• Oedipus Rex: said to come closest to the ideal, according to Aristotle
• Oedipus Rex: tragedy par excellence

Euripides: the poet of negative values

• Reveals the consequences of the dissolution of the state for human life with a deep-seated longing for resolution
• Questioned the very existence and justice of the gods
• Introduced the third actor, according to Aristotle

As a triad: these three great tragedians come to represent distinctive stages of consciousness during this period.