what is political in drama in classical athens?
The politics of greek tragedy ⁃ poets are considered as teachers (2) ⁃ good poetry could save the city, bad poetry could destroy it (4) ⁃ addressed towards the citizens of athens ⁃ political would be refereed as concern with human beings as part of a community according to Macleod (64) ⁃ A tragedy can thus be said to be more political the more it's male characters are engaged in the public life of the city. same goes for women ⁃ tragedies can be political in different ways ⁃ exercise of political power is one way which puts the head of the household of having power (example of this is on page 69) ⁃ issues of justice, is another form of different tragedies. judicial authority of court laws come into play. ⁃ Third different form of political drama is the life of the polis on a more personal level for its original audience members. Tragedy was understood to teach greeks to be good citizens. There are a few problems that derive from this. Free-born men in tragedies are usually kings and princes, Tragic heroes are heroic and elevated in character and they usually suffer from dreadful acts. ⁃ Lessons that are learned from tragic heroes are not to follow in their path because they do die. ⁃ any attempt to separate the domestic and the political in tragedy must be artificial (71) ⁃ the polis can be defined as both as a physical space and as the sum of its citizens (73) ⁃ the use of tragic space reflects the popular political assumptions of the ancient greeks. ⁃ tragedies located in front of a house in a city would be political because it negotiates the boundaries between private and the public lives of the citizens. ⁃ page 76 is examples of staging and second dichotomy used; city under attack, outside walls, out of city. ⁃ three conceptual spaces in tragedy: the private world of the oikos;the public world of the polis;and various kinds of outside worlds. ⁃ form of violence occur within the privacy of the home, or outside the city and never in the presence of the public within the city. exception of this was Euripides Suppliants where Evadne throws herself to death ⁃ the natural political home of tragedy was heroic monarchy. (89)
The Great Donysia and Civic Ideology ⁃ generals would be appointed as judges and the generals would attend to the festival religiously ⁃ orphaned children were brought on stage to show what happened when aggression was applied; anti-war, anti-imperialist ⁃ page 65, When verant says that war is an essential determinate of a mans role in society, in part he is referring to the way in which citizenship and military values are inherently intertwined in fifth-century athens. ⁃ at the funeral for the fallen in the war, glories of the individuals are not given but glories to the city is made; giving thanks ⁃ the young orphaned boys would march in military outfits to symbolize the embodiment of citizenship. The city now takes care of them by paying for their upbringing and education. ⁃ democratic polis ideology influences the child becoming a man, and what it means to be a man. ⁃ page 68, the city's claim on the citizen as man affects the status of the child ⁃ page 68, The great Dionysia is a public occasion endowed with a special force of belief, This is fundamentally and essentially a festival of the democratic polis. ⁃ page 68, The tragic texts seem to question, examine and often subvert the language of the city's order. ⁃ tragedy dramatizes conflicting obligations of household and state-especially emphasized. Example The Septum, the Antigone or the Oedipus Tyrannus. ⁃ tragedy portrays the dissolution and collapse of social order, portrays man reaching beyond the bonds and norms of social behaviours, portrays a universe of conflict, aggression, impasse. page 74 ⁃ tragedy seems deliberately to problematize, to make difficult the assumption of the values of the civic discourse (page 74) ⁃ to attend the festival it self would in turn make the individual play the role of a democratic citizen ⁃ the plays make the citizens question how they should live in a polis, thus making it political ⁃ the purpose of Philoctetes is to display to the citizens in attendance of the play that a young boy almost the same age as the orphans(Neoptolemus), placed the interest of an individual(Philoctetes), over the interests of the army. ⁃ this drama raised the ideology of acting in benefit of the city.
The political Art of Greek Tragedy ⁃