06 What Is Greek Tragedy? w/ Rush Rehm (Aeschylus, Sophocles, Euripides)
Ancient Greece Declassified
Dr. Lantern Jack
4.8 • 587 Ratings
🗓️ 29 January 2017
⏱️ 50 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Rush Rehm, professor of classics and of theater and performing studies at Stanford University, joins us for a discussion about Greek tragedy. The origins of tragedy (and theater in general) can be traced back in time to one city in the late 6th century BC: Athens. Theater in Athens seems to emerge at the same time that democracy is born. Is that a coincidence? Or is there some deeper connection between the invention of theater and democracy? Scholars have been debating this for a long time.
Furthermore, Greek tragedies are famous for their depiction of human suffering. What are we to make of these wrenching stories? Is this just horror for the sake of horror? Is it just shock-value? Is it extreme pessimism? Or, as some philosophers have argued, is there something cathartic, or even elevating, about these plays?
Our discussion today will take us back to the dawn of theater in 5th century BC Athens. We're going to talk about what going to the theater was like for the ancient Athenians, and then we're going to get into some of the deeper issues these plays bring up.
If you would like to learn more about the individual Greek tragedies mentioned in this episode (like Antigone, Oedipus Rex, Medea etc), check out the awesome podcast called "Literature and History." Not only will you hear these classic stories told in a witty, dramatic way, but you'll also find an exploration of the deeper meanings and historical background of these plays.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hi, thanks for tuning in to ancient Greece, Declassified. |
| 0:12.0 | Episode 6. What is Greek tragedy? There is an architectural feature that can be found in places all over southern Europe, |
| 0:26.6 | northern Africa, and in Asia, at least as far as India. |
| 0:29.6 | And wherever you come across one of these structures, you immediately know, |
| 0:34.6 | aha, Greek civilization has been here. It's perhaps the most enduring |
| 0:39.7 | physical mark the Greeks have left on the earth. Wherever you come across an old stone amphitheater, |
| 0:46.3 | whether it's in southern France, Libya, Ukraine, or Afghanistan, you know the Greeks were there |
| 0:53.0 | at some point. |
| 0:55.1 | The origins of theater can be traced back in time to one city in particular in the 5th |
| 1:00.1 | century BC, Athens. |
| 1:03.2 | Theater seems to emerge in Athens at the same time that democracy is born. |
| 1:08.5 | Is that a coincidence? |
| 1:10.4 | Or is there some deeper connection between the invention |
| 1:13.1 | of theater and democracy? Scholars have been debating this for a long time. Luckily, our |
| 1:18.8 | evidence for Athenian theater is relatively good. Two and a half thousand years later, |
| 1:24.5 | we still have today a few dozen plays from the earliest years of |
| 1:28.6 | theater. You can still read them, and you can see them performed in theaters all over the world. |
| 1:34.8 | Sometimes they even hit the big screen. Spike Lee recently made a movie called Shirek, |
| 1:40.5 | which is an updated version of an ancient Athenian comedy by Aristophanes. |
| 1:46.0 | The TV series Game of Thrones has several scenes that might as well be taken straight out of ancient tragedy. |
| 1:53.0 | In season 5, for example, the character Stanis Baratheon is told by a priestess that he must sacrifice his daughter to the fire god in order to win an upcoming battle. |
| 2:04.6 | What is he to do? |
... |
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