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Aristotle, Theatre Spaces
Theatre 100 -- Dr. Blood
week 2 of class
Definitions - Theatre Spaces
Theatre must have a live performer
and a live audience. That’s it.
Proscenium stage
Thrust stage
Arena stage
Found spaces
Environmental staging
Audience
Forms a collective identity
Cyclic interchange with performers
Different behaviors expected in different
times, performance styles
Critic as privileged audience member
Peer reviewers for grants
Academic critics
Aristotle’s Poetics
C. 350 BCE
Aristotle’s Poetics
C. 350 BCE; 1st extant work of literary or
artistic criticism
Focus on tragedy; did he also write ones on
comedy and epic poetry?
Imitation is the basis of art (from Plato);
drama is imitation of action
Definition of tragedy
Six Elements of Drama
In order of importance to Aristotle:
Plot
Character
Thought (theme)
Diction (artistic use of language)
Song/Music
Spectacle
Plot Elements
Beginning, middle, end structure
Unity and probability
A complex vs. a simple plot is preferred;
this includes peripety (reversal) and
anagnorisis (recognition)
Single vs. double (no subplots)
Goal (telos) is catharsis - gives drama a
social function in the polis
Character elements
Characters should also be probable or necessary
Hero
Good
Aim at propriety
True to life
Consistent
Hamartia (tragic flaw): meaning much debated
Structure of Tragic Plot
Prologue
Parodos
3-5 Episodes (scenes) alternate with Choric
parts
Exodus
Commos (optional) joint chorus and
character section
Old Comedy
5th century BCE
Part of City Dionysia from 487 BCE
Political and social satire
Personal attacks, author’s POV
Aristophanes (c.448-380 BCE) bridges old
and middle comedy; Lysistrata (411 BCE)
is old comedy
Structure of Old Comedy
“Happy idea:” absurd but clear relevance to
contemporary issue
Prologue
Chorus enters and debates the happy idea (agon)
with each other and characters
Parabasis choral section in the middle, direct
address to audience,
Scenes of adopting the happy idea
Komos - reconciliation, often exiting to feast or
revels
Peloponnesian War 431-404 BCE
Background of Aristophanes’ play: 20 years into
the war
Athens (Delian League) vs. Sparta (Peloponnesian
League)
1st phase (10 yrs) Athens’ navy raids coasts,
Sparta repeatedly invades Attica
Peace of Nicias, 421
2nd: Athens launches attack on Syracuse in 415,
whole force destroyed 413
Persian joins Sparta, they chip away at Athens’
allies
Destroy navy at Aegospotami, 405
Results of Peloponnesian War
Massive human cost
Tremendous economic cost; Athens never
regains prosperity
Democracy vs. oligarchy
Warfare broke prior rules: devastation of
whole cities, crops and countryside, broken
religious and cultural taboos
Historians: Thucydides, Xenophon
How are these real costs lampooned by
Aristophanes?