Greek tragedy facts for kids

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This mask of Dionysus was found in ancient Greece. It's now in the Louvre museum.

Greek tragedy is a very old type of play from Ancient Greece. It's one of the three main kinds of plays they had, along with comedy (funny plays) and the satyr play (a mix of serious and funny). Greek tragedy became most important in Athens around the 5th century BC. Sometimes, these plays are called Attic tragedy because Athens was in a region called Attica.

Many people believe Greek tragedy grew out of old ceremonies honoring Dionysus, the god of wine and celebration. These plays greatly influenced theater in Ancient Rome and during the Renaissance period much later. The stories in tragedies often came from old myths and epic poems. But instead of just being told, these stories were acted out by performers. The most famous Greek tragedy writers were Aeschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides. They explored many ideas about human nature, helping the audience connect with the play.

What Does "Tragedy" Mean?

The "Goat Song" Idea

The word tragedy (in Greek, Ancient Greek: τραγῳδία, romanized: tragōidía) has been debated for a long time. One of the oldest ideas comes from Aristotle, a famous Greek thinker. He said that tragedy grew from the dithyramb, a special hymn (song) sung and danced to honor Dionysus.

The word tragōidía comes from two Greek words: Ancient Greek: τράγος (meaning "goat") and Ancient Greek: ᾠδή (meaning "song"). So, it means "song of the goats." This might refer to the chorus of satyrs (mythical half-goat, half-human creatures) who were part of early performances. Another idea is that the first tragic competition offered a goat as a prize. The legendary Thespis, who is said to be the first actor, might have won this prize. This is why actors are sometimes called "thespians" today!

Other Ideas for the Word

Some scholars think tragōidía meant "song for the sacrifice of the goat." This would mean the goat was part of a religious offering.

Another interesting idea comes from Jane Ellen Harrison. She thought Dionysus was first known as the god of beer, not just wine. In Athens, beer was made from barley, which was called tragos in Greek. So, she suggested that "tragedy" might have originally meant "odes to spelt" (a type of grain), and later the name stuck for these plays.

How Greek Tragedy Developed

The Start of Tragedy

We don't know exactly how Greek tragedy began because there isn't much evidence left. But we can see influences from other types of poetry, like epic poems and lyric poetry. The way the lines were spoken and the songs were sung also came from earlier traditions.

For tragedy to become what it was, three big things had to happen:

Someone had to combine a speaker with a chorus (a group of singers/dancers).
Both the speaker and chorus had to pretend to be characters from old stories.
These performances became part of a big festival in Athens called the City Dionysia.
Rules were made about how to organize and pay for the plays.

From Songs to Plays

Aristotle said that tragedy started as improvisations (making things up on the spot) by those who led the dithyramb. These early performances were short and a bit silly, like the satyr plays. Over time, the language became more serious, and the rhythm of the speech changed.

The poet Arion is said to have invented the dithyramb. At first, these songs were improvised, but later they were written down. A Greek chorus of up to 50 men and boys would dance and sing in a circle, often with music from an aulos (a flute-like instrument). They would tell stories about Dionysus.

As tragedy grew, actors started to talk more with each other, and the chorus's role became smaller. The Greek word for "actor" is hypocrites, which means "answerer" or "interpreter." This might be because the actor would answer the questions of the chorus.

The First Tragedies

Tradition says that Thespis was the first person to play a character in a play. This happened in 534 BC during the Dionysia festival, started by Pisistratus. We don't know much about his plays, except that the chorus was still made of satyrs. Aristotle said Thespis was the first to win a drama contest and the first actor to play a character instead of just speaking as himself.

Other early playwrights included Choerilus and Pratinas. We only know the titles of their works. At this time, satyr plays were performed alongside tragedies.

Another important playwright was Phrynichus. He introduced dialogues (conversations) and female characters for the first time. He also brought historical events into tragedies, like in his play Capture of Miletus. He won his first contest in 510 BC. Around this time, plays started to be organized into trilogies (a series of three plays).

Aeschylus: Setting the Rules

Aeschylus

Aeschylus helped create the basic rules for tragic drama. He is known for inventing the trilogy, where three tragedies tell one long story. He also added a second actor, which made it possible to show conflicts between characters. Trilogies were performed one after another throughout a whole day. After the last play, a satyr play was staged to cheer up the audience, who might have been sad from the tragedy.

Aeschylus's plays show how tragedy grew. Dialogue, conflicts, and special effects became more important. This was partly because of competition with younger playwrights like Sophocles. Sophocles added a third actor and made plots more complex, with characters the audience could relate to more easily.

Aeschylus was open to some of Sophocles's new ideas, but he kept his plays very moral and religious. For example, in his plays, Zeus (the king of the gods) always represents ethical thinking and action.

Sophocles's Changes

Sophocles

Plutarch tells a story about the young Sophocles winning against the famous Aeschylus. This led to Aeschylus leaving Athens for Sicily. Sophocles introduced many new things and won at least twenty contests. He added a third actor and increased the number of chorus members to fifteen. He also brought in scenery and different scenes.

Compared to Aeschylus, the chorus became less important in explaining the story in Sophocles's plays. There was more focus on developing characters and their conflicts. In Oedipus at Colonus, the chorus says, "not to be born is best." The terrible things that happen to the heroes are not always explained or justified. This shows a new, sad look at the human condition, which is still relevant today.

Euripides: Real Feelings

Euripides

Euripides's tragedies are different from the other two playwrights. He liked to experiment with new techniques and paid more attention to feelings. He used feelings to show how tragic events unfolded.

Euripides's experiments can be seen in three main ways:

He made the prologue (the start of the play) a monologue where one character tells the audience the story's background.
He introduced the deus ex machina (a god appearing suddenly to solve problems).
He slowly made the chorus less important in the drama, focusing more on songs sung by individual characters.

Another new thing in Euripides's plays was the realism he used to show characters' inner thoughts and feelings. His heroes were not always strong and sure, like in Aeschylus and Sophocles. Instead, they were often insecure and struggled with inner conflicts.

He often used female main characters, like Andromache, Phaedra, and Medea. Through them, he showed how strong emotions and illogical impulses could clash with the world of reason.

How Greek Tragedies Were Structured

Greek tragedies followed a certain structure.

The play usually started with a prologue. This was a "preliminary speech" where one or more characters introduced the play and explained what was happening.
Next came the parodos, which was when the chorus or characters entered.
Then, the story unfolded through three or more episodes.
Between episodes, there were stasima, which were songs sung by the chorus. These songs explained or commented on what was happening in the play. In the episodes, characters and the chorus would talk to each other.
The tragedy ended with the exodus, which concluded the story.

Not all plays followed this structure exactly. For example, Aeschylus's The Persians and Seven Against Thebes didn't have a prologue.

The Language of Greek Tragedy

The language used in Greek tragedies depended on who was speaking.

For parts spoken by individual characters, they used the Attic dialect of Greek.
For the songs sung by the chorus, they used a more formal Doric dialect.

For the rhythm of the words (metre):

Spoken parts mainly used the iambic trimeter, which Aristotle said sounded the most natural.
Choral parts used many different rhythms.
Anapaests were used when the chorus or a character moved on or off the stage.
Lyric metres were used for the choral songs.
Dochmiacs often appeared in parts with very strong emotions.

Ideas About Greek Tragedy

Mimesis and Catharsis

Aristotle wrote the first big study of tragedy, called the Poetics. He used two main ideas to explain what tragedy does: mimesis (meaning "imitation") and catharsis (meaning "cleansing").

He wrote: "Tragedy is, therefore, an imitation (mimēsis) of a noble and complete action [...] which through compassion and fear produces purification of the passions."

Mimēsis means that tragedy imitates human actions and life.
Catharsis means a kind of emotional cleansing for the audience.

What exactly "emotional cleansing" means has been debated by scholars for a long time. Some think it means that the strong feelings of pity and fear we feel during a tragedy are transformed into something enjoyable and helpful. It's like an "education for the emotions," teaching us what to feel pity or fear about.

The Three Unities

Aristotle also talked about three "unities" for plays:

Unity of action: A play should have only one main story, with few or no side stories.
Unity of place: A play should happen in only one physical location. The stage shouldn't try to show many different places.
Unity of time: The events in a play should happen within a short period, usually no more than 24 hours.

Aristotle believed a play needed to be complete, with a clear beginning, middle, and end. He also said that tragedies should be shorter than epic poems, ideally taking place within "one revolution of the sun" (one day). These unities were important in theater for many centuries, even though some famous writers like Shakespeare didn't always follow them.

Apollonian and Dionysian: Nietzsche's Ideas

Friedrich Nietzsche, a philosopher from the late 1800s, pointed out a contrast in tragedy.

The Dionysian part is about strong passion and emotions that take over a character.
The Apollonian part is about the clear, beautiful images and structure of the play.

Nietzsche believed that ancient Greek culture had a conflict between these two ideas. The Apollonian was about visual arts (like sculptures), and the Dionysian was about music and emotion. He said that these two different forces worked together, often clashing, until they finally combined in Attic Tragedy. He saw Greek tragedy as a mix of both Dionysian passion and Apollonian order.

Greek Tragedy as a Big Event

The theatre of Dionysus in Athens

Greek tragedy was more than just a show; it was a big community event for the polis (city-state). It happened in a special, sacred place, with an altar to the god Dionysus in the middle of the theater.

Imagine being a spectator in a Greek theater around the 5th century BC:

You would sit in the theatron, a curved area of seats shaped like a horseshoe.
Below you, in the best spot, was the throne for the priest of Dionysus, who oversaw the performance.
The theater in Athens, at the theatre of Dionysus, was huge! It could hold about 17,000 people.
In front of you was a flat, circular area called the orchestra, which means "dancing place." An altar stood in its center. The chorus would dance and sing here.
On the sides of the seating area were the parodoi, paths used by both the audience and the actors/chorus to enter and exit.
Behind the orchestra was the skene (scene building). This building usually looked like the front of a house, palace, or temple.
The skene usually had three doors for actors to enter and exit.
Right in front of the skene was a raised platform called the proskenion or logeion, where much of the acting happened.

The theater was a place where ideas and problems from Athens's democratic, political, and cultural life were discussed. Tragedies often used Greek myths as a way to talk about the big issues facing Athenian society at the time. For example, Aeschylus's The Persians was performed in 472 BC, just eight years after the Battle of Salamis, when the war with Persia was still going on. The play allowed Athenians to see the war from the Persian side and feel sympathy for them.

Other tragedies, especially those by Euripides, also brought the past into the present. They included ideas from Athenian politics and society of the 5th century BC. For example, Euripides's Orestes talks about political groups, which was very relevant to Athens in 408 BC.

Tragedy performances happened in Athens during the Great Dionysia, a festival honoring Dionysus in March. The government organized it, and three wealthy citizens were chosen to pay for the plays. This was a common practice in Athenian democracy, where rich citizens funded public services.

During the Dionysia, there was a contest between three playwrights. Each playwright had to present a tetralogy (a group of four plays: three tragedies and one satyr play). Each tetralogy was performed in one day, so the tragedies lasted three days. The fourth day was for comedies. At the end, a jury of ten citizens chose the best chorus, actor, and author. The winning author, actor, and chorus were chosen partly by chance and partly by votes.

The Greeks loved tragedy so much that people said Athens spent more money on theater than on its navy! When the cost became an issue, an admission fee was introduced, along with a special fund called the theorikon to help people pay for tickets.

Surviving Greek Tragedies

Out of the many Greek tragedies written, only 32 full plays by just three authors—Aeschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides—have survived completely. We know of more than 300 from fragments.

Aeschylus's Plays

We know of 79 titles by Aeschylus, but only seven have survived. This includes the only complete trilogy from ancient times, the Oresteia.

The Persians (Ancient Greek: Πέρσαι / Template:Lang-grc-Latn), 472 BC
Seven Against Thebes (Ancient Greek: Ἑπτὰ ἐπὶ Θήβας / Template:Lang-grc-Latn), 467 BC
Suppliants (Ancient Greek: Ἱκέτιδες / Template:Lang-grc-Latn), around 463 BC
The trilogy Oresteia (Ancient Greek: Ὀρέστεια / Template:Lang-grc-Latn), 458 BC, which includes:
- Agamemnon (Ancient Greek: Ἀγαμέμνων / Template:Lang-grc-Latn)
- Choephoroi (Ancient Greek: Χοηφόροι / Template:Lang-grc-Latn)
- Furies (Ancient Greek: Εὐμενίδες / Template:Lang-grc-Latn)
Prometheus Bound (Ancient Greek: Προμηθεὺς δεσμώτης / Template:Lang-grc-Latn) (date uncertain, some scholars think it might not be by Aeschylus)

Sophocles's Plays

Sophocles wrote 123 plays, and seven of them are still complete today:

Ajax (Ancient Greek: Αἴας / Template:Lang-grc-Latn) around 445 BC
Antigone (Ancient Greek: Ἀντιγόνη / Template:Lang-grc-Latn), 442 BC
Women of Trachis (Ancient Greek: Tραχίνιαι / Template:Lang-grc-Latn), date unknown
Oedipus Rex (Ancient Greek: Οἰδίπoυς τύραννoς / Template:Lang-grc-Latn) around 430 BC
Electra (Ancient Greek: Ἠλέκτρα / Template:Lang-grc-Latn), date unknown
Philoctetes (Ancient Greek: Φιλοκτήτης / Template:Lang-grc-Latn), 409 BC
Oedipus at Colonus (Ancient Greek: Oἰδίπoυς ἐπὶ Κολωνῷ / Template:Lang-grc-Latn), 406 BC

We also have a large part of his satyr play Ancient Greek: Ἰχνευταί or Trackers, found on an old papyrus.

Euripides's Plays

Euripides wrote many plays, and eighteen tragedies plus one complete satyr play, the Cyclops, have survived.

Alcestis (Ancient Greek: Ἄλκηστις / Template:Lang-grc-Latn), 438 BC
Medea (Ancient Greek: Μήδεια / Template:Lang-grc-Latn), 431 BC
Heracleidae (Ancient Greek: Ἡρακλεῖδαι / Template:Lang-grc-Latn), around 430 BC
Hippolytus (Ancient Greek: Ἱππόλυτος στεφανοφόρος / Template:Lang-grc-Latn), 428 BC
The Trojan Women (Ancient Greek: Τρώαδες / Template:Lang-grc-Latn), 415 BC
Andromache (Ancient Greek: Ἀνδρομάχη /Template:Lang-grc-Latn), date unknown
Hecuba (Ancient Greek: Ἑκάβη / Template:Lang-grc-Latn), 423 BC
Suppliants (Ancient Greek: Ἱκέτιδες / Template:Lang-grc-Latn), 414 BC
Ion (Ancient Greek: Ἴων / Template:Lang-grc-Latn)
Iphigenia in Tauris (Ancient Greek: Ἰφιγένεια ἡ ἐν Ταύροις / Template:Lang-grc-Latn)
Electra (Ancient Greek: Ἠλέκτρα / Template:Lang-grc-Latn)
Helen (Ancient Greek: Ἑλένη / Template:Lang-grc-Latn), 412 BC
Heracles (Ancient Greek: Ἡρακλῆς μαινόμενος / Template:Lang-grc-Latn)
The Phoenician Women (Ancient Greek: Φοινίσσαι / Template:Lang-grc-Latn) circa 408 BC
Orestes (Ancient Greek: Ὀρέστης /Template:Lang-grc-Latn), 408 BC
Iphigenia in Aulis (Ancient Greek: Ἰφιγένεια ἡ ἐν Αὐλίδι / Template:Lang-grc-Latn), 410 BC
The Bacchae (Ancient Greek: Βάκχαι / Template:Lang-grc-Latn), 406 BC
Cyclops (Ancient Greek: Κύκλωψ / Template:Lang-grc-Latn) (a satyr play)
Rhesus (Ancient Greek: Ῥῆσος / Template:Lang-grc-Latn) (possibly not by Euripides)

How Actors Connect with the Audience

The Audience's Role

In Greek tragedy, the audience was meant to feel like they were part of the play. They were supposed to get lost in the story. Sometimes, silent actors would sit with the audience to make it feel like the audience was part of the story.

The Chorus and Citizens

The chorus in tragedies often represented a specific group of people, like old men or young boys from a certain city. For example, in Aeschylus's Seven against Thebes, a female chorus is criticized for making citizens feel bad. This shows that the chorus was often seen as representing the citizens. Male choruses were sometimes named after their groups, like "Argive boys" or "jury-service-loving old men." This showed their role in the community.

Greek Tragedy as a Performance

Maenad, a dancing woman from ancient Greek art, c. 480 BC.

It can be tricky to understand Greek tragedy as a "drama" in the way we think of plays today. Early Greek tragedies were mostly based on song and spoken words, not written scripts. This means they were very much about the performance.

Many scholars believe that Greek tragedy was "performative" by nature. They were often musical and sung, and they came from a strong tradition of oral storytelling. The experience of tragedy really needed a live performance; it wasn't just something to read like a book. Some even call it "pre-drama" because it doesn't quite fit our modern idea of drama that came later, like during the Renaissance.

As plays developed and more dialogue was added, the chorus sang less and less. This shows how Greek tragedy changed to include more spoken interactions between characters.

Deus Ex Machina: A Special Trick

The Deus Ex Machina is a special technique used in plays. It means "god from the machine." This is when a problem in the play is suddenly solved by an unexpected character, often a god, who appears and brings the story to an end.

An example is in Euripides's play, Hippolytus. In this play, Hippolytus is cursed to die by his father, Theseus. This happens because the goddess Aphrodite hates Hippolytus. He is completely devoted to another goddess, Artemis (who represents purity), and he rejects Aphrodite (who represents love and desire).

The play shows how a god's intervention starts the main theme of revenge, which leads to the downfall of a royal family. At the end of the play, Artemis appears to tell King Theseus that he wrongly cursed his son. Without this divine intervention, Theseus would not have realized his mistake, and the audience might not have understood the deeper truths of the story. This technique was very important in Greek tragedy for showing big ideas.

Aeschylus: Connecting with Characters

In many of Aeschylus's plays, you can really connect with the characters. For example, in Prometheus Bound, Prometheus is a Titan god. He stole fire from the gods and gave it to humans, also teaching them arts and knowledge. This made the gods angry.

In this tragedy, Prometheus is punished by Zeus not just for giving fire to humans, but also because he thought humans would praise him as a hero and see Zeus as a cruel ruler. Aeschylus's play helps the audience connect with Prometheus because he acts not for selfish reasons, but is willing to suffer for the good of humanity.

Images for kids

Maenads dancing, bringing a sacrificial lamb or kid