Greek tragedy

The Greeks wrote plays in which despite (or because) of a hero's best intentions, the worst of events occured to him.

Oedipus Rex is the best example, wherein he is sent away from home, so that he will not fulfill the prophecy of killing his father. Many years later, he has a scuffle on a road with a man and kills him: you guessed it.

Not only that... he comes home, takes the man's possessions, including the man's wife. Oopsy, incest style.

To amend things, he has his eyes plucked out and wanders the world a blind fool.



“Ah God! It was true! All the prophecies! -Now, O Light, may I look on you for the last time! I, Oedipus, Oedipus damned in his birth, in his marriage damned, Damned in the blood he shed with his own hand!”

That's a Greek tragedy.

dclary said:

Oedipus Rex is the best example, wherein he is sent away from home, so that he will not fulfill the prophecy of killing his father. Many years later, he has a scuffle on a road with a man and kills him: you guessed it.

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No! Not his father!?

How is there catharsis if he wanders the world a blind fool?

K1P1 said:

There are plenty of other examples than Oedipus Rex, but it combines incest (you left that out DClary).

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No I didn't. Are there no critical readers left in the world? Please read my entire post (and all the words in it) before accusing me of such things.

Thank you.

K1P1 said:

I guess their catharsis is as good as anyone's. Oh, you meant, "How is there catharsis."

The catharsis isn't something the characters experience. It's what the audience experiences. Sort of like the relief you feel when you stop hitting your head against a brick wall.

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I don't get it.

Tragedy doesn't make me feel good unless there's some type of hope or something at the end.

I see 'ole Eddypus blind and wandering, I feel non-catharticated.

K1P1 said:

. First of all, it doesn't end with Oedipus killing his father. He has to go on to marry his mother and the have children. .

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um. Did you actually read his post? I mean, really read it? I don't think you did.

He doesn't say it ends with Oeddy killing off Pa.


Another way to sum up a Greek Tragedy- make the life of a hero nice, then rip it away from him because of his strenghts. kill off everyone and everything he loves. and leave him alive at the end to enjoy the eternal misery.

Whistlelock - I realized after I responded to your post that I had probably misinterpreted the "he" to which you referred. I thought you meant billythrilly. On futher pondering, because you seemed to be overreacting, it finally occurred to my bleary brain that you meant DClary. Going back, I saw DClary's accusation that I missed part of his post, which was entirely true [please accept my apologies for that too]. I *swear* I read it three or four times, and my eye skipped over the key words "Oopsy, incest style" at the end of that line every single time. I'm sure that what I wrote as a result was pretty incoherent.

My apologies to all for muddying the waters. Please chalk it up to far too little sleep. I've deleted the offending posts which were not up to my own standards for accuracy and hope that you will all forgive me.

This thread is actually a pretty funny Greek tragedy in and of itself, IMO. LOL.

billythrilly7th said:

How is there catharsis if he wanders the world a blind fool?

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He becomes President of the United States.

caw.

way to go birdie!! Love it!!

I offer a different explanation of Greek Tragedy. In the history of Greek theatre, there were three great writers of Tragedies whose work still exists -- Sophocles, Euripides and Aeschylus. Annually at the festival for Dionysis - the God of Wine - a festival was held where authors would compete. They would present 3 Tragedies and One Satyr play or Comedy.

The Greeks had many stage tricks they used for their Tragedies. One was the ekkyklêma, which was a cart hidden behind the scenery which could be rolled out to display the aftermath of some event which had happened out of sight of the audience -- like showing the bloody bodies from a murder or battle. This was done so that the other characters in the play would be able to see the result and react to it onstage - even though the actual violence did not take place on stage for the audience to see. It was considered too hard on women to witness these violent actions. This technique is still often used in theatre. Another device was a large crane that could pick up performers and lower them onto the stage as though they flew there. This device was called "Deus ex Machina" or the "god Machine" ... This was usually used when a character was backed into an impossible corner, and there was no way out. The playwright would simply have a God descend from above and carry the character off to his just rewards. Often today, when an author suddenly is written into a corner and comes up with a new character or device to get his character out of trouble, he is said to be using a Deus ex Machina.

The other characteristic of a Greek tragedy is a chorus - a group of voices who narrate the action on stage and often tell of things happening off stage.

Greek Tragedies are full of instances of incest - albeit accidental - where long lost son falls in love with mother etc. They are full of pathos and many like the Oedipus story has been written again and again into more contemporary versions. For instance, Satre rewrote Antigone and Eugene O'Neill wrote Mourning Becomes Electra - taking place in the civil war.

And Electra was in Daredevil.

K1P1---umm...I can still see what you wrote cause they quoted you.

Don't let these kittens get to you. I know somebody who knows somebody, you know what I mean? Just say the word, WHACK!

persiphone_hellecat said:

Greek Tragedies are full of instances of incest - albeit accidental - where long lost son falls in love with mother etc.

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FWIW, I think there's just that one with the incest thing. But there's a lot of killing of family members.

I think in a loose sense, a Greek tragedy involves the hero and one/both of his parents in a series of tragic events, resulting in a tragic end despite the hero's best intention or effort.

maestrowork said:

I think in a loose sense, a Greek tragedy involves the hero and one/both of his parents in a series of tragic events, resulting in a tragic end despite the hero's best intention or effort.

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Hero for Sale?

writerterri said:

K1P1---umm...I can still see what you wrote cause they quoted you.

Don't let these kittens get to you. I know somebody who knows somebody, you know what I mean? Just say the word, WHACK!

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Well, of course you can see a couple of comments. Doesn't matter to me. I thought that the bulk of what I posted was crap, when I read over it. If I'd liked it, I would have stayed and defended it. As it was, I thought I sounded truly obnoxious. I wanted someone else on this thread to win "most obnoxious," not me.

I'll just the the martyr in this piece

Thank you for using "would have" instead of "would of."

That's a pet peeve of mine, that would have required more Oedipal eye-gouging, I can tell you.

Someone who is highborn and falls down into the pit of despair by their own hand. So "Oedipus Rex" would be a tragedy. "The Lamentable Tragedy of Romeo and Juliet" written by Shakespeare is not a true tragedy because although the two main characters are high born their fate was written in the stars "a pair of star-cross'd lovers" and therefore out of their control. "Death of a Salesman" is not a true tragedy either. Although Willy Loman falls into tragedy he is not high born but only a commoner.

This is what I remember from my one semester of Theatre class when I was in college 4 years ago. Hey I knew I would use my education for something.

Tell me this counts.

billythrilly7th said:

Hero for Sale?

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K1P1 said:

Well, of course you can see a couple of comments. Doesn't matter to me. I thought that the bulk of what I posted was crap, when I read over it. If I'd liked it, I would have stayed and defended it. As it was, I thought I sounded truly obnoxious. I wanted someone else on this thread to win "most obnoxious," not me.

I'll just the the martyr in this piece

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As you were...

BottomlessCup said:

FWIW, I think there's just that one with the incest thing. But there's a lot of killing of family members.

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Electra had a thing for her brother ... Antigone for daddy ... Many had those "feelings" but they werent realized as they were by Oedipus and Mom

"The Lamentable Tragedy of Romeo and Juliet" written by Shakespeare is not a true tragedy because although the two main characters are high born their fate was written in the stars "a pair of star-cross'd lovers" and therefore out of their control."

Surely this applies to Oedipus as well? The reason his real father had him crippled and left out on the mountain to die was because it was foretold that he would kill his father and marry his mother.

And, as a complete non sequitur, Aeschylus was killed when an eagle mistook his bald head for a rock and dropped a tortoise on it.

(Though, personally, had I been the goddess in charge, I'd have gone for more irony and had the eagle drop it on Aesop. In fact I'd've been leaning off my cloud, cackling gleefully and yelling: 'Tortoise. Hare. Geddit? Geddit?)

Either way, not a particularly happy ending.