Tragedy Comedy Athens Great (Or City) Dionysia Dithyrambs: Invoked

Greek Theory of Tragedy:
Aristotle's Poetics The classic discussion of Greek tragedy is Aristotle's Poetics. He defines tragedy as "the imitation of an action
that is serious and also as having magnitude, complete in itself." He continues, "Tragedy is a form of drama exciting the
emotions of pity and fear. Its action should be single and complete, presenting a reversal of fortune, involving persons renowned
and of superior attainments, and it should be written in poetry embellished with every kind of artistic expression." The writer
presents "incidents arousing pity and fear, wherewith to interpret its catharsis of such of such emotions" (by catharsis, Aristotle
means a purging or sweeping away of the pity and fear aroused by the tragic action). The basic difference Aristotle draws
between tragedy and other genres, such as comedy and the epic, is the "tragic pleasure of pity and fear" the audience feel
watching a tragedy. In order for the tragic hero to arouse these feelings in the audience, he cannot be either all good or all evil
but must be someone the audience can identify with; however, if he is superior in some way(s), the tragic pleasure is intensified.
His disastrous end results from a mistaken action, which in turn arises from a tragic flaw or from a tragic error in judgment.
Often the tragic flaw is hubris, an excessive pride that causes the hero to ignore a divine warning or to break a moral law. It has
been suggested that because the tragic hero's suffering is greater than his offense, the audience feels pity; because the
audience members perceive that they could behave similarly, they feel pity.
Further, drama was an important part of Greek culture, and the Festival of Dionysus included a drama competition where
playwrights would stage new plays and vie for the title of the festival's best production.
Dionysus had the power to inspire and to create ecstasy, and his cult had special importance for art and literature. Performances
of tragedy and comedy in Athens were part of two festivals of Dionysus, the Lenaea and the Great (or City) Dionysia. Dionysus
was also honoured in lyric poems called dithyrambs. In Roman literature his nature is often misunderstood, and he is
simplistically portrayed as the jolly Bacchus who is invoked at drinking parties. In 186 BCE the celebration of Bacchanalia was
prohibited in Italy.
In contemplating the meaning and significance of Dionysus, the most appropriate place to start is the myth of his birth. Dionysus
was conceived by a mortal woman, Semele, and an immortal god, Zeus. While still in the womb of his mother she was destroyed
by a torrent of lightning borne from Zeus. In danger of perishing with his mother, Zeus took the unborn Dionysus from the
flames which engulfed his mother, and sewed Dionysus onto his thigh; caring for him until he was developed and healthy
enough to set forth in the world.
A child of both the mortal and divine realm, born first from a mortal woman and then an immortal god, Dionysus was referred
to in the ancient world as “the twice-born one”; a god of dual nature and paradox, whose essence from the very start
differentiated him from other gods as especially enigmatic.
The suffering and death which characterized the myth of the birth of Dionysus prefigured not only his fate, bestowing upon him
the epithet the “suffering and dying god”, but the fate of all those who cared for or took an interest in him. Tragedy or madness
befell them all. His mother’s sister, Ino, for example, who took it upon herself to care for the newborn, and motherless,
Dionysus, died in a fit of madness by plunging herself into the sea with her own infant son in her arms.
In all the myths, whenever Dionysus appears, he comes violently and in an alarming manner. His presence awakens a sense of
urgency, ecstasy, and terror in the hearts of all within his vicinity. The urgency his presence evokes is due to the inexpressible
and agonizing secretive nature of his being, of the fact that he symbolizes “the eternal enigmas of duality and paradox”(Walter
Otto, Dionysus: Myth and Cult). For what can one do when Dionysus arrives, and one is confronted with a stark awareness of the
perplexing nature of reality, but fall back in euphoria or else lose touch in a transitory insanity. GOD OF TRAGIC CONTRAST.
Such a tragic insight into the nature of things can stimulate what Nietzsche called a “Dionysian affirmation of life” – a complete
affirmation of the totality of being where the negative and destructive elements are not slandered, explained away, or rejected,
but seen as a necessary component of the good, the true, and the beautiful, and therefore as ultimately desirable.
“The saying Yes to life even in its strangest and hardest problems; the will to life…that is what I call Dionysian.”
He expresses the truth that opposition and harmony, creation and destruction, ecstasy and terror, life and
death, are inseparable from each other.

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Greek Theory of Tragedy:

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