Ideas In Greek Drama

The work was written around 450 BC, a time of high Greek culture where literature and drama were placed at the forefront of society. Sophocles was a key player in this movement, and his plays were performed in a widespread area across ancient Greece and beyond. However, its popularity grew immensely as time went on, especially during the Middle Ages and the Renaissance period, when the fascination with the arts and the accomplishments

Theater in ancient Greece was considered the climax of the days long cultural festival of The City Dionysia. At the festival, various types of plays were shown but one of the most popular was tragedy. These tragedies show the main character, usually a god or person of myth, going through human suffering and the terrible sequence of events that followed; and were produced in 472- 401 BCE. In order for a play to be performed at The City Dionysia festival; tragic playwrights would first have to appeal to the state official that was organizing the festival by submitting ideas to him and his committee. The ideas submitted were outlines of main themes and points of interest to be performed in the play. If a playwright was selected by the state official and his committee, then they received a financial backer and a chance to compete in the drama competition of the festival. The state official, or his committee, was likely pushing their own agenda and choose playwrights that matched their ideals. This is just one example of how theater in ancient Greece was used to influence the morality of Greek culture by using the stories of tragedies, like those of Euripides.

The two types of Greek dramas would be popular and performances spread around the Mediterranean influenced Hellenistic and Roman theatre. The works of such great playwrights as Sophocles and Aristophanes formed the foundation upon which all modern theatre is based.(Ancient Greek theatre,Ancient history encyclopedia by Mark Cartwright July 14 2016) “ Greek theater is still one of the most important and long-lasting theatrical influences in the world, and with some Greek plays still being performed to this day.

Sophocles is considered one of the greatest Greek play writers. He was the fist to add a third main character and the first to get rid of trilogic form. As a result, Sophocles had to shorten all of the “action,” therefore giving his plays a more dramatic effect.

Greek plays required a very specific setting to be performed and written. The society needs to allow people the needed time to work and perform plays as well as educate them enough to be able to write the plays. Athens was a society that based itself off of education. This allowed people to have knowledge to write and read yet still gave them free time to work on plays. Sparta, was a militaristic society that was only focused on raising the best possible warriors. This meant education, free time, and even enjoyment was not necessary. Sparta’s militarist focus left no time or cares for plays while Athens’ relaxed nature and education focused provide the ideal environment for Greek plays to succeed.

Ancient Greek culture has influenced our modern culture in many ways from philosophy to medicine to government. We still use many of their concepts, technology, and even alphabet system. Without ancient Greece, our modern world would not have advanced as far. A significant contribution of the ancient Greek culture to the world today is the Greek theater, more specifically the structure of tragedy. Some contributions are the structure of tragedy in modern literature, rise of opera, and the creation of the theater.

Greek drama was performed in the late 6th century BCE in ancient Greece. Tragedians like Euripides wrote very influential and popular plays such as the Bacchae. Greek tragedies lead to Greek comedies such as Aristophanes’ Lysistrata. Many of the Greek dramas have similar concepts, one of being duality. Without duality, the nature of our lives and the environment around us remains unbalanced.

A lot of famous play writers today are also inspired by the works of play writers from ancient Greece.

Sophocles was a greek dramatic. Did you know that he was famous for doing one hundred and twenty three dramas, Also because he was the most celebrated writers. Sophocles suffered by people who brought on shelves. Tragedy dealt with love,loss,pride the abuse of power and the fraught relationships between man and gods. Sophocles was born in four hundred and ninety six B.C. his parent were sophilus,and jocasta.

Ancient Greek Theater is the first historical record of “drama,” which is the Greek term meaning “to do” or “to act.” Beginning in the 5th century BC, Greek Theater developed into an art that is still used today. During the golden age of the Athenians plays were created, plays that are considered among the greatest works of world drama. Today there are thousands of well-known plays and films based on the re-make of ancient drama.

Greek theatre and medieval drama were both very popular artistic events in their own periods of performance. However, from ancient Greece to the renaissance, time has set them apart in terms of methodology; their practitioners use a creative process based off of different mindsets. Therefore, the significant time lapse between the two genres has had an evident impact on the way theatre was perceived and presented. In comparing aspects such as religious motivations, conditions of violence and character development, the distinct theatrical natures of Greek theatre and medieval drama will be made apparent.

Tragedy as a form works differently than modern drama when compared to the ancient Greeks. When it comes to modern drama, the main character is usually an ordinary person, someone who is middle class. Where as with Greek tragedy, the main character is someone important and noble, such as a king or queen. Modern drama revolves around everyday problems such as social, economical, or personal conflicts. Greek Tragedies seem to be very linear. It’s mostly about the hero making a bad decision from the beginning of the play, which leads to his or her downfall in the end. Although, they were of higher ranking, ancient Greek’s beliefs made the main character powerless to avoid their fate, which was controlled by the gods. As far as conventions go, Greek Tragedies are very unified. The tragedy of the royal protagonist will go through only one time span, a day or less, one setting, and one story. In a modern tragedy, however, the ordinary protagonist’s story goes through multiple realistic settings and a realistic time line. Also, the story would contain multiple plots, which may contain flashbacks.

     "The arts of the western world have been largely dominated by the artistic standards established by the Greeks of the classical period" (Spreloosel 86). It is from the Greek word theatron, meaning a place for sitting, that we get our word theater. According to James Butler, "The Greeks were the first people to erect special structures to bring audiences and theatrical performers together" (27). "The theaters were normally located near a populated area at the bottom of or cut out of a carefully selected, sloping hillside overlooking a seascape, a plain, or a city" (Butler 30). "They eventually with few exceptions consisted of three distinct parts: theatron

Historic playwrights such as Sophocles, Euripides, Aeschylus, and Seneca were described as prolific philosophers and geniuses of their times. These men actively participated in the politics surrounding them, and were respected and revered in their society. Each had their own individual style and portrayed their personalities through each of their noted works. Nevertheless, as with a majority of playwrights throughout history, most fodder for their plays have been adaptations of previous plays written by their predecessors or based off mythological events. Unfortunately, this had lead to many speculative accusations and criticisms, as is the case with Senecan tragedies versus their Greek counterparts. Senecan and Greek interpretations of

greeks, and Sophocles noted for his writing abilites of the time, made one such play about tragedy. This