Athenian Tragedy: A Study in Popular Art |
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accept action actor Aeschylean Aeschylus Agamemnon Aias ancient Antigone Apollo Archer Aristophanes Aristotle Artemis artist Athenian Athens audience beauty character character-drawing choral song chorus comedy convention Corinth Creüsa crisis dance death Delphi dialogue Dionysos divine dramatic dramatist effect Elektra element emotions Eumenides Euripidean Euripides exposition expression fact fate father final Gilbert Murray gods Greek tragedy Hecuba Helen Herakles Hippolytos honor human imitation Iokaste Iphigeneia Ismene king Klytaimestra Kreon Laïos less lines lyric means Medea Menelaos modern moral mother murder myth nature Neoptolemos Odysseus Oedipus Orestes painting palace parodos passion perhaps Persians person Philoktetes play playwright plot poet's present prologue Prometheus religious reveal rhythm satyr-play satyrs scene sense Shakspere skēnē Sophokles speak spirit stage story struggle success suffering Suppliants sympathy Taurians Teiresias temple theater Thebes things thought tion tragic poet Troy verse whole women word Xerxes Zeus
Popular passages
Page 53 - As for Comedy, it is (as has been observed) an imitation of men worse than the average; worse, however, not as regards any and every sort of fault, but only as regards one particular kind, the Ridiculous, which is a species of the Ugly. The Ridiculous may be defined as a mistake or deformity not productive of pain or harm to others; the mask, for instance, that excites laughter, is something ugly and distorted without causing pain.
Page 53 - As soon, however, as a spoken part came in, nature herself found the appropriate metre. The iambic, we know, is the most speakable of metres, as is shown by the fact that we very often fall into it in conversation, whereas we rarely talk hexameters, and only when we depart from the speaking tone of voice.
Page 92 - I loth must rivet fast in chains Against this rocky height unclomb by man, Where never human voice nor face shall find Out thee who lov'st them, and thy beauty's flower, Scorched in the sun's clear heat, shall fade away.
Page 53 - Though the successive changes in Tragedy and their authors are not unknown, we cannot say the same of Comedy; its early stages passed unnoticed, because it was not as yet taken up in a serious way. It was only at a late point in its progress that a chorus of comedians was officially granted by the archon; they used to be mere volunteers. It had also already certain definite forms at the time when the record of those termed comic poets begins. Who it was who supplied it with masks, or prologues, or...
Page 52 - Discarding short stories and a ludicrous diction, through its passing out of its satyric stage, it assumed, though only at a late point in its progress, a tone of dignity; and its metre changed then from trochaic to iambic. The reason for their original use of the trochaic tetrameter was that their poetry was satyric and more connected with dancing than it now is.
Page 128 - Perhaps we shall scarcely come nearer to a helpful definition than if we say that the essence of drama is crisis. A play is a more or less rapidly developing crisis in destiny or circumstance, and a dramatic scene is a crisis within a crisis, clearly furthering the ultimate event.
Page 52 - The number of actors was first increased to two by Aeschylus, who curtailed the business of the chorus, and made the dialogue, or spoken portion, take the leading part in the play. (2) A third actor and scenery were due to Sophocles. (3) Tragedy acquired also its magnitude. Discarding short stories and a ludicrous diction, through its passing out of its satyric stage, it assumed, though only at a late point in its progress, a tone of dignity; and its metre changed then from trochaic to iambic.
Page 49 - Be not too tame neither, but let your own discretion be your tutor ; suit the action to the word, the word to the action ; with this special observance, that you o'erstep not the modesty of nature ; for anything so overdone is from the purpose of playing, whose end, both at the first and now, was, and is, to hold as 'twere the mirror up to nature ; to show virtue her own feature, scorn her own image, and the very age and body of the time his form and pressure.
Page 49 - ... heard without being unnaturally loud, and without acquiring a stilted delivery. The advice of the old actors was that you should always pitch your voice so as to be heard by the back row of the gallery — no easy task to accomplish without offending the ears of the front row of the orchestra. And I should tell you that this exaggeration applies to everything on the stage. To appear to be natural, you must in reality be much broader than nature. To act on the stage as one really would in a room,...
Page 52 - Be that as it may, tragedy— as also comedy— was at first mere improvisation. The one originated with the leaders of the dithyramb, the other with those of the phallic songs, which are still in use in many of our cities.