Assignment Nov
Mohammed115
03Unit3GreekandRomanTheatre.docxUNIT 3
GREEK AND ROMAN THEATRE
Sophocles, Aeschylus, Euripides, Terence, Plautus and Mendander
Who was Sophocles? What was his contribution in the Greek Theatre?
Sophocles was an ancient Greek dramatist who lived from about 496 to about 406 BCE. He wrote over 100 plays and was one of the three famous Greek tragedians (along with Aeschylus and Euripides). He is credited with diverging from the typical format of a tragedy: he increased the number of speaking actors, increased the number of chorus members, and used painted scenery.
Ancient authorities credit Sophocles with several major and minor dramatic innovations. Among the latter is his invention of some type of “scene paintings” or other pictorial prop to establish locale or atmosphere. He also may have increased the size of the chorus from 12 to 15 members. Sophocles’ major innovation was his introduction of a third actor into the dramatic performance. It had previously been permissible for two actors to “double” (i.e., assume other roles during a play), but the addition of a third actor onstage enabled the dramatist both to increase the number of his characters and widen the variety of their interactions. The scope of the dramatic conflict was thereby extended, plots could be more fluid, and situations could be more complex.
Write a short note on Aeschylus. What is his contribution in Greek theatre?
Aeschylus was a Greek dramatist. Aeschylus, (born 525/524 BC—died 456/455 BC, Gela, Sicily), the first of classical Athens’ great dramatists, who raised the emerging art of tragedy to great heights of poetry and theatrical power. Aeschylus’ influence on the development of tragedy was fundamental. Previous to him, Greek drama was limited to one actor (who became known as the protagonist, meaning first actor, once others were added) and a chorus engaged in a largely static recitation. (The chorus was a group of actors who responded to and commented on the main action of a play with song, dance, and recitation.) The actor could assume different roles by changing masks and costumes, but he was limited to engaging in dialogue only with the chorus. By adding a second actor (the deuteragonist, or second actor) with whom the first could converse, Aeschylus vastly increased the drama’s possibilities for dialogue and dramatic tension and allowed more variety and freedom in plot construction. Although the dominance of the chorus in early tragedy is ultimately only hypothesis, it is probably true that, as Aristotle says in his Poetics, Aeschylus “reduced the chorus’ role and made the plot the leading actor.” Aeschylus was an innovator in other ways as well. He made good use of stage settings and stage machinery, and some of his works were noted for their spectacular scenic effects. He also designed costumes, trained his choruses in their songs and dances, and probably acted in most of his own plays, this being the usual practice among Greek dramatists.
Write a short note on Euripides. What is his contribution in Greek theatre?
Euripides was a Greek dramatist. Euripides, (born c. 484 BC, Athens [Greece]—died 406, Macedonia), last of classical Athens’s three great tragic dramatists, following Aeschylus and Sophocles. The ancients knew of 92 plays composed by Euripides. On more than 20 occasions Euripides was chosen, out of all contestants, to be one of the three laureates of the year.
Euripides’ plays exhibit his iconoclastic, rationalizing attitude toward both religious belief and the ancient legends and myths that formed the traditional subject matter for Greek drama. These legends seem to have been for him a mere collection of stories without any particular authority. He also apparently rejected the gods of Homeric theology, whom he frequently depicts as irrational, petulant, and singularly uninterested in meting out “divine justice.” That the gods are so often presented on the stage by Euripides is partly due to their convenience as a source of information that could not otherwise be made available to the audience.
Given this attitude of sophisticated doubt on his part, Euripides invents protagonists who are quite different from the larger-than-life characters drawn with such conviction by Aeschylus and Sophocles.
Given this strong strain of psychological realism, Euripides shows moments of brilliant insight into his characters, especially in scenes of love and madness. His depictions of women deserve particular attention; it is easy to extract from his plays a long list of heroines who are fierce, treacherous, or adulterous, or all three at once.
During the last decade of his career Euripides began to write “tragedies” that might actually be called romantic dramas, or tragicomedies with happy endings. These plays have a highly organized structure leading to a recognition scene in which the discovery of a character’s true identity produces a complete change in the situation, and in general a happy one.
Write a short note on Terence. What is his contribution in Roman theatre?
Terence is a Roman dramatist. Terence, Latin in full Publius Terentius Afer, (born c. 195 BC, Carthage, North Africa [now in Tunisia]—died 159? BC, in Greece or at sea), after Plautus the greatest Roman comic dramatist, the author of six verse comedies that were long regarded as models of pure Latin. Terence’s plays form the basis of the modern comedy of manners.
Most of the available information about Terence relates to his career as a dramatist. During his short life he produced six plays.
The influence of Terence on Roman education and on the later European theatre was very great. His language was accepted as a norm of pure Latin, and his work was studied and discussed throughout antiquity.
Write a short note on Plautus. What is his contribution in Roman theatre?
Plautus, (born c. 254 BCE, Sarsina, Umbria? [Italy]—died 184 BCE), great Roman comic dramatist, whose works, loosely adapted from Greek plays, established a truly Roman drama in the Latin language.
Little is known for certain about the life and personality of Plautus, who ranks with Terence as one of the two great Roman comic dramatists.
His literary and dramatic skills make his plays enjoyable in their own right, while the achievement of his comic genius has had lasting significance in the history of Western literature and drama.
Plautus did not borrow Greek elements into his dramatic theater slavishly. Although the life represented in his plays is superficially Greek, the flavour is Roman, and Plautus incorporated into his adaptations Roman concepts, terms, and usages. He referred to towns in Italy; to the gates, streets, and markets of Rome; to Roman laws and the business of the Roman law courts; to Roman magistrates and their duties; and to such Roman institutions as the Senate.
Although Plautus’s original texts did not survive, some version of 21 of them did.
Write a short note on Mendander. What is his contribution in Greek theatre?
Menander (c. 342/41 – c. 290 BC) was a Greek dramatist and the best-known representative of Athenian New Comedy. He wrote 108 comedies and took the prize at the Lenaia festival eight times. His record at the City Dionysia is unknown but may well have been similarly spectacular.
