Ancient Greek drama

“ The Greeks are a people of such swift constructive imagination that they almost always obscure any problem of origins. So fair and magical are their cloud-capp’d towers that they distract our minds from the task of digging for foundations. There is scarcely a problem in the origins of Greek mythology and religion that has been solved within the domain of Greek thinking only. Ritual with them was, in the case of drama, so swiftly and completely transmuted into art that, had we had Greek material only to hand, we might never have marked the transition. ”

“ Few of his pieces are without particular passages of the most overpowering beauty. It is by no means my intention to deny him the possession of the most astonishing talents: I have only stated that these talents were not united with a mind in which the austerity of moral principle, and the sanctity of religious feelings were held in the highest honor."
The life, essence, and characteristic qualities of the ancient Greek drama may be found in three things. ”

“ In spite of the great advance made by Greek drama from the rough popular beginnings till the time of its greatest glory, and in spite of the enormous difference between the tragedies of the three great masters and the comedies of Aristophanes, both in their whole character as well as in the details of their structure and performance, and the cyclic choruses and rustic sports of the old Dionysia, yet there are a few points in which the drama, even in its highest development, shows the traces of its origin. ”

“ The Greek drama owed its power to the qualities of regularity and simplicity: the strength of the modern lies in subtlety and multiplicity. The external conditions of the Attic theatre, no less than the prevailing spirit of Greek tragic art, forced this simplicity and regularity upon the ancient dramatists. These conditions do not occur in the modern world. We have our little theatres, our limited audience, our unmasked actors, our scenical illusions, our freedom in the choice of subjects. ”

“ Their greatest sculpture and architecture were flawless in their simplicity and beauty. They have been copied and imitated, but never surpassed. The Greek stage set certain limitations to the drama, but within these limitations the dramas of the great Athenian dramatists were well-nigh perfect. Other small nations in the history of the world have fought for their freedom just as passionately and with as much self-control, unbroken will and self-sacrifice, and have obtained it, but it was Athens who first showed the world that right is stronger than might and will ultimately prevail. ”

“ Finally, in the golden age of the Attic stage, the chorus dancers and singers were carefully trained, at great expense, and the dialogue became the masterpiece of some great poet,—and then the Greek drama, the most splendid creation of human genius, was complete.
The Three Great Tragic Poets.—There are three great names in Greek tragedy,—Æschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides. These dramatists all wrote during the splendid period which followed the victories of the Persian war, when the intellectual life of all Hellas, and especially that of Athens, was strung to the highest tension. ”

“ If the matter of the plot be drawn from Greek history or mythology, should it not be essentially Greek in plot, incident, thought, feeling, indeed, in everything but the language? Would an ancient dramatist have dared to represent the utterances from the tripod as influenced by such a man as Aletes?
These are the faults of a play which in the main is interesting and pleasing, and will well repay the labour of perusal. We named in connection with the "Creusa" of Whitehead, and the "Ion" of Euripides, the "Ion" of Sir Thomas Talfourd. It borrows only the name of the Greek drama. ”

“ Thus the goat-song of early days developed into the true drama (action) , the crowning effort of Greek genius. Athens had the honor of creating and perfecting it; while in other departments of verse she fell behind her neighbors, in dramatic poetry she eclipsed them all.
The love of the theatre grew into a passion at Athens. When the first rude structure of boards gave way under the weight of the audience, her citizens erected a permanent edifice of semicircular form, whose seats, rising in tiers, were hewn in the rocky side of the Acropolis. ”

“ If a modern theatergoer could be suddenly set down in ancient Athens, perhaps one of the first things to surprise him would be the discovery that he could not have recourse to his favorite recreation any day that he might choose. Of course, this situation resulted from the fact that ancient drama was connected with religion, was part of some god’s worship, and as such could be presented only at the time of his festivals. ”

“ Second, Those critics have erred who, applying the principles of modern theatrical criticism to the chaunted parts of the ancient lyrical drama, have found many parts dull or wearisome, extravagant, and even ridiculous, which, there can be no doubt, with their proper musical accompaniment, were the most impressive, and the most popular parts of the representation. Third, We err altogether, when we judge of the excellence of an ancient Greek drama as a composition, by its effect on us when reading it. The Suppliants, for instance, is generally considered a stupid play ”

“ Indeed, an outstanding difference between ancient and modern tragedy, doubtless arising from the fact that the former dealt with traditional material whose outlines were fairly well known to at least some and could be modified only within certain limits, consists in this, that the Greek tragedians usually made little or no attempt to keep their audiences in the dark as to the outcome. It is true that there are occasional exceptions. ”

“ If there is one well-authenticated fact in the history of Greek drama, expressly stated in ancient notices and fully substantiated by the extant [5] plays, it is that tragedy arose from a choral performance and only gradually acquired its histrionic features. On the contrary, these carnivals are predominantly histrionic; there is either no chorus or its rôle is distinctly secondary. Had Aristotle been guilty of such a faux pas, we can easily imagine the derisive comments in which modern investigators would have indulged at his expense. ”

“ Greek drama, which seemed at first to give us our clue, to show us a real link between ritual and art, breaks down, betrays us, it would seem, just at the crucial moment, and leaves us with our problem on our hands. ”

“ Most of our classical scholars, also, study and teach and edit the ancient dramatists as if they, too, had been equally slipshod. Our handbooks on scenic antiquities and the classical drama have been written from the same point of view. Of late years the Germans have awakened to the real situation, and many of their recent monographs deal with various phases of the subject. Nevertheless, so lately as 1911 a German dissertation began with these words:
As yet not very many investigations into the technique of the Greek tragedians are available. ”

“ Anything that might be said in detail on the iambic or dialogic part of ancient tragedy would only serve to set in a yet stronger light the grand fact which has been urged, that the strength of the Greek drama lies in the singing, and not in the acting. ”

“ In order to comprehend the differences between the ancient and the modern drama—between the tragedy of Sophocles and the tragedy of Shakespeare—it is necessary to enter into the details of the history of the Attic stage. In no other department of art is the character of the work produced so closely dependent upon the external form which the artist h [Pg 172] ad to adopt.
Both the tragedy and comedy of the Greeks were intimately connected with the religious rites of Dionysus. ”

“ It still remains to speak of another kind of soliloquy, viz., the aside or, more accurately speaking, the apart, by which the grim ghastliness of modern tragedy has often been enhanced. The vastness of Greek theaters and the almost constant presence of from twelve to twenty-four choreutae rendered this artifice an awkward one for ancient playwrights. Nevertheless, asides are occasionally found in Greek drama. In Euripides’ Hippolytus (vss. 1060 ff.) , that hero, unable to clear himself of false accusations except by violating his oath of secrecy, exclaims to himself ”

“ We call this power enthusiasm, a Greek word which simply means the god within us.
From very early times, stories of his life were recited at the religious festivals held in honour of Dionysus, and then stories of the other gods and of the ancient heroes were told as well. It was from these beginnings that the drama came. Originally, the story was told in the form of a song, chanted at first by everyone taking part in the festival, and later by a chorus of about fifty performers, and at intervals in the song the leader would recite part of the story by himself. ”

“ Something more than the mere instinct of imitation, therefore, caused the Greeks to develop their drama. Like sculpture, like the epic, the drama was one of the artistic forms through which the genius of the Greek race expressed itself—by which, to use the language of philosophical mysticism, it fulfilled its destiny as a prime agent in the manifestation of the World-Spirit. ”

“ Since, however, the Greek drama has obtained so extended and lasting a celebrity, and yet its excellence does not fall under the strict rules of the critical art, we should inquire in what it consists.
That the charm of Greek tragedy does not ordinarily arise from scientific correctness of plot, is certain as a matter of fact. Seldom does any great interest arise from the action; which, instead of being progressive and sustained, is commonly either a mere necessary condition of the drama, or a convenience for the introduction of matter more important than itself. ”

“ Assuming the hegemony of Hellas, to which she was fore-destined by her spiritual superiority, she flashed in the supreme moment which followed the battle of Salamis into the full consciousness of her own greatness. It was now, when the Persian war had made the Greeks a nation of soldiers, and had placed the crown on Athens, that the drama—that form of art which combines all kinds of poetry in one, which subordinates sculpture, painting, architecture, music, dancing, to its own use, and renders all arts subservient to the one end of action—appeared in its colossal majesty upon the Attic stage. ”

“ And be it noted that the Greek drama, whether tragic or comic, was literary. It bears to be read as much as to be acted; it is a work of conscientious art. In tragedy the writing is pure poetry. In comedy it is humour and wit, biting, sparkling, often coarse and very personal, but always full of life. There was some defence for personality. Comedy, like tragedy, served to give various lessons to the Athenians. Greece possessed no newspapers, and in their place the comic stage served even more than now to criticize fads, to chastise political and private misdoings. ”

“ Abdera, the birth-place of Democritus, the Thracians, men tattooed all over,—all these towns, by the side of their citadel, had a theatre. Why? Because the theatre keeps alight the flame of love for the fatherland. Having the barbarians at their gates, it was important that they should remain Greeks. The national spirit is the strongest of bulwarks.
The Greek drama was profoundly lyrical. It was often less a tragedy than a dithyramb. ”

“ Academy, school, history, philosophy, logic, grammar, poetry, rhythm, harmony, melody, music, are all from Greek words which were in common use in Athens, and the lasting influence of her sublime dramatic tradition is indicated by the great words, chorus, comedy, drama, theatre, and tragedy, and the lesser catastrophe, episode, prologue, and protagonist, all of which draw their meanings from the originality and inspiration of the great Athenian dramatists. ”

“ But when we speak of Greek Comedy in its relation to the Roman Drama, we must not form our idea of Comedy from the plays of Aristophanes. It so happens that he stands before us moderns as the sole surviving representative, in anything like discernible shape, of the comic drama at Athens. ”

“ In tragedy, such as it existed in the polished ages of Greece, the movements were slow and solemn, and, no doubt, full of dignity. The spirit of comedy required brisk and lively, and frequently tolerated, audaciously wanton dances; while the Chorus of the Satyric Drama would appear to have been rude and clownish rather than indecent, indulging in grotesque movements, ludicrous and extravagant gestures, and that rustic and farcical style of mimicry which may be supposed to have prevailed among the rough peasantry of Hellas. ”

“ But no drama except Greek has that regular interweaving of tragedy with exquisite lyrics by which some of its most powerful effects are secured.
Effect is the wrong word to use, for we have here no literary trick, but a view of life, which is naturally complete and clearsighted, which is sensitive to the beauty that no evil can destroy, which sees the splendour in tragedy itself, and remembers that though the days of darkness are many it is a pleasant thing for the eyes to behold the sun. This philosophy, implied throughout Greek literature, commends it to many people. ”

“ If we take utility to mean intellectual and not practical utility—and as humanists and scientists we do—we may claim without paradox that the study of Greek civilization is valuable just because it is not our own.
These, then, are four points in favour of Greek history: we possess the whole tragedy, it is a magnificent expression of the plot, and it has a peculiar emotional value and a peculiar intellectual value which the drama in which we ourselves are actors cannot have for us. ”