TRAGEDY

To understand the play as a choice of form

To explore the origins of Tragedy

To explore to what extent tragedy can be a representation of

society

Key words: Greek tragedy, society, form, play

Todays lesson is linked to which Assessment Objective?

FORM: What is the purpose of a

play?

Public Forum

Defining identity

Communication

The theatre state

Social issues and concerns

Politics

Debate and discuss

Influential

Dialogue

Democracy

A court

Greek Theatre

The City Dionysia

The Myth of Dionysus

Dionysus = son of Zeus and

Semele (a mortal woman).

Zeus' wife Hera was

extremely jealous killed
Semete.

Zeus managed to save the

unborn Dionysus by stitching
him into his own thigh.
Because Zeus carried him
until his birth, Dionysus
became immortal.

When he was older, Dionysus is said to have discovered the

grapevine.

He taught mankind how to cultivate the vine and make

wine from the grapes.

Dionysus became the god of wine, as well as the madness

and partying that goes with it.

He represents hedonistic lifestyle and pleasure seeking

The Festival
Four times a year Athenians and citizens from all
over Greece gathered together to worship Dionysis.

The largest of these was The City Dionysia

This was held in late March/early April.

It provided relief and rest for the hard labour workers

The Festival

Tragedy began here in the 6th century.

A contest was formed to honour the best

Greek tragedy.

In 534, Athens made the contests official

and offered financial support for their
production.

Once made official, the contests and their

The Festival
The

festival allowed three playwrights to have their plays performed in the

tragic contests.

Each

contestant was required to submit three tragedies and one satyr play (a
form of comedy that required the chorus to dress as the satyr companions of
Dionysus).

The

tragedies were required to be in the form of a trilogy e.g. The Oresteia

(Aeschylus)

The

contest lasted for three days, one for each playwright.

Each

playwright presented all their plays in one day.

After

the three days of performances, the winner would be put to a vote

Traditions
The

Greeks would sing and dance and revel in

a state of madness in worship of the god.
Goats
Men

Large

were sacrificed in his honor.

would dress up as satyrs.

amounts of wine would be consumed.

Greek Tragedy

What are the different ways people try to predict the future?

(astrology, Tarot cards, fortune cookies, etc.).

Ancient peoples prophesied the future in many different ways

Such as studying animal entrails in ancient Rome and listening to

oracles in ancient Greece.

Do any of you believe in prophesies?

Would they believed them if you had lived over 2000 years ago?

Fate versus Free will: Does Fate

Control Our Actions or Does
Mans Free Will?

The stars

The wheel of fortune

Predetermination

Free will?

Accidents?

Year 12 English Lit: What is a

Tragedy?

Brainstorm tragedy features

Modern examples in different forms

Why do we enjoy watching tragedy?

Brainstorm

Which scenario is worse? Why?

Scenario 1

A bad man who commits bad actions

Scenario 2

A great man who commits mistakes

Aristotle ( 384 - 322 B.C.)

Died in 322B.C. at the

height of his powers.

He was a tireless
scholar.

It is recorded that he
was an inspirational
teacher and a
controversial public
figure.

He bestrode antiquity
like an intellectual
colossus. ( J. Barnes).

He was tutor to
Alexandra the Great

Born 384 B.C. in Stagyra in

Macedonia.
He was the son of a court
physician.
He was Platos brightest
pupil and studied with him
for twenty years.
He was driven all his life by a
desire for knowledge.
He wanted to promote the
discovery of truth and the
sum of human knowledge.

Aristotle and the Elements of

tragedy

Aristotle said that tragedy has six main elements:

1. Plot;

2. Character;

3. Thought;

4. Diction;

5. Melody;

6. Spectacle.

CHARACTER: What is Oedipuss

moral purpose?
What about MEDEA?

Character is the second most important element of tragedy. Each character has an
essential quality or nature that is revealed in the plot.

The moral purpose of each character must be clear to the audience. The
characters should have four main qualities.

A. No matter who they are (hero or slave), the characters must be good in
some way.
B. The characters should act appropriately for their gender and station in life.
C. The characters have to have believable personalities.
D. Each character must act consistently throughout the play. In other words,
nothing should be done or said that could be seen as acting out of
character.

PLOT

Aristotle felt that the action of the play (its plot) was the most
important of the six elements.

He said, All human happiness or misery takes the form of action...

character gives us qualities, but it is in our actions--what we do--that
we are happy or miserable.

1. There must be Unity of Plot. This has already bee n described in

the definition which talks about one complete action. Any
events or episodes must be necessary to the main issue and must
also be probable or believable.

PLOT: 2. A good plot has Peripety or

Discovery--sometimes both.

Discovery

is a change fro m ignorance to

knowledge. This often happens
to the tragic hero who starts out
clueless and slowly learns how
he himself created the mess he
ends up in at the end of the play.

Peripety

is the change from one state of things at the beginning of

the play to the exact opposite state by the end of the play.

This could be something like the change from being rich to

being poor, or from being powerful to being powerless, or
from being a ruler to being a beggar.

The change that takes place in a tragedy should take the

main character (and possibly other characters) from a state
of happiness to a state of misery.

Where does this happen in

Macbeth?

PLOT

3. Change by itself is not enough. The character involved in the

change must have specific characteristics to arouse the tragic
emotions of pity and fear. Therefore, Aristotle said that there are
three forms of plot that should be avoided.

A. A totally good man must not pass from happiness to

misery.
This will make the audience angry that bad things
happened to him. They wont pity him so much as be
angry for him.
B. A bad man must not pass from misery to happiness.
This wont appeal to the audience at all because they
wont want to see evil rewarded.
C. A bad man can not pass from happiness to misery.
The audience wont feel sorry for him because they will
believe he got what he deserved.

The true tragic hero cannot

be too good or too bad, but
he must end up in misery.
Aristotle concluded that the
best tragedy centres on a
basically good man who
changes from happiness to
misery because of some
great error.
For example, he might have
a good quality, like pride,
that gets out of hand.

PLOT: PART 4

4. The plot of a tragedy also

involves some horrible or evil
deed. The tragic hero either does
it consciously, does it out of
ignorance, or mediates it (makes
it easy for the deed to happen).

For the audience to be horrified by the evil deed, the evil

has to be done to someone important to the tragic hero.

If the hero kills his enemy, the deed wont seem so bad.

On the other hand, if the hero kills someone he doesnt

care about, the audience wont care much either.

To make it really horrible for the audience, Aristotle

suggested that the evil deed should be done to a family
member

Greek Tragedy

Oedipus: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oXyek9Ddus4

Aristotle was a great admirer of SophoclesOedipus the King,

considering it the perfect tragedy

Drama task:
Modernising Tragedies:
Take the story of Medea.
Tell the WHOLE story and put it into a
modern environment.
(think of a modern day soap opera
style!)

https://
www.youtube.com/watc
h?v=i6NduvUW3tw

The TRAGIC HERO

Characteristics Aristotle once said that "A man doesn't become a hero until he can see the
root of his own downfall.

An Aristotelian tragic hero must possess specific characteristics, five of which are below:

1.

Flaw or error of judgment (hamartia) Note the role of justice and/or

revenge in the judgments.

2.

2) A reversal of fortune (peripeteia) brought about because of the

hero's error in judgment.

3.

3) The discovery or recognition that the reversal was brought about

by the hero's own actions (anagnorisis)

4.

4) Excessive Pride (hubris)

5.

5) The character's fate must be greater than deserved.

Do you think it was fate what

happened to you?
What can people learn from your
story?
Do you feel your punishment was
greater than you deserved?
What errors in judgement did you
make?
Would it be fair to say that you
were an overly proud man?

HOT SEATING OEDIPUS:

ROLE PLAY
ADD 3 MORE QUESTIONS

What do we learn about human

behaviour , about society in this
play?

OEDIPUS
MEDEA
MACBETH

What makes a Shakespearean

tragedy?

Kidblog: Homework

Other common traits Some other common traits characteristic of a

tragic hero: Hero must suffer more than he deserves. Hero must
be doomed from the start, but bears no responsibility for possessing his
flaw. Hero must be noble in nature, but imperfect so that the
audience can see themselves in him. Hero must have discovered his
fate by his own actions, not by things happening to him. Hero must
understand his doom, as well as the fact that his fate was discovered
by his own actions. Hero's story should arouse fear and empathy.
Hero must be physically or spiritually wounded by his experiences,
often resulting in his death. The hero must be intelligent so he may
learn from his mistakes. The hero must have a weakness, usually it is
pride He has to be faced with a very serious decision that he has to
ma

Quiz on the rules of tragedy

How far do you agree or disagree

with these statements?

Madness is all in the mind

Most children easily adapt to their parents remarrying

Adults understand teenagers

Actions speak louder than words

Being a step father is difficult

Being in love can make you feel unstable and detached from reality

Falling in love is your business and no one has the right to interfere

Overly emotional women who are too sensitive tend to bring trouble upon themselves

Women need advice from men in order to understand relationships

It is a child's duty to achieve the things their parents couldnt