Aeschylus pronunciation

Form of theatre from Ancient Greece

"Greek Tragedy" redirects here. For other uses, see Greek Tragedy (disambiguation).

Greek tragedy (Ancient Greek: τραγῳδία, romanized: tragōidía) is one of the three principal theatrical genres from Ancient Greece and Greek-inhabited Anatolia, along with comedy and the satyr play. It reached its most significant form in Athens in the 5th century BC, the works of which are sometimes called Attic tragedy.

Greek tragedy is widely believed to be an extension of the ancient rites carried out in honor of Dionysus, the god of wine and theatre, and it heavily influenced the theatre of Ancient Rome and the Renaissance. Tragic plots were most often based upon myths from the oral traditions of archaic epics. In tragic theatre, however, these narratives were presented by actors. The most acclaimed Greek tragedians are Aeschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides. These tragedians often explored many themes of human nature, mainly as a way of connecting with the audience but also as way of bringing the audience into the play.

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A portrait from a vase of a Greek actor performing in Sophocles' lost play Andromeda.

Sophocles (c. 496 B.C.E. – 406 B.C.E.) (Ancient Greek: Σοφοκλης) was one of the three great ancient Greek tragedians who, with Aeschylus and Euripides, defined the forms of drama and theater, establishing a literary tradition that influenced not only the drama of the ancient world but of the Western literary tradition to the present day. Every major dramatist—from Seneca to William Shakespeare, from Jean-Baptiste Molière to Johann Wolfgang von Goethe—has been influenced in some degree by Sophocles' conception of tragedy.

The tragedies of Sophocles are less derivative of Homeric fate or the implacable will of the gods than of inherent human limitations. Prefiguring Shakepearean tragedy, Sophocles explores human fallibility, the limits of knowledge, and the susceptibility of the human condition within the cosmic order. In Sophoclean tragedy, the violation of natural law entails its own consequences, but suffering also provides a means of redemption.

Sophocles' protagonist

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Sophocles

 

Sophocles ( 497/496-406/405 BCE) was born in Colonus. While still an adolescent, he led the boy’s chorus in the paean (song of triumph) celebrating the Greek victory over the Persians at the Battle of Salamis. Athenian tradition held that the battle linked the three great ancient tragedians: Aeschylus fought there, Sophocles took part in the festivities, and Euripides was said to have been born on the very day it took place. Thanks to his aristocratic and wealthy background, Sophocles received an excellent education. During the Samian War (511-439 BCE), he served as a general, together with Pericles and Thucydides. In his first participation in a dramatic competition he won first prize, beating Aeschylus into second place. His plays vary in terms of form, with human fate taking on a significant role either as arbitrary personal destiny or as a consequence of divine justice that aims to restore moral order by punishing wrongdoing. Sophocles introduced a number of innovations that became an accepted and established part of the tragic genre. He incre