What does the word tragedy mean and where does it come from?
The word tragedy derives from the ancient Greek tragoidia, combining tragos ("he-goat") and oide ("singing" or "ode"). Scholars believe it traces to a time when a goat was either the prize in a choral dancing competition or the animal a chorus danced around before ritual sacrifice. A second theory, proposed by Athenaeus of Naucratis (2nd-3rd century CE), links it to trygos (grape harvest) and ode, because the earliest performances coincided with harvest celebrations.
How did Aristotle define tragedy in the Poetics?
Writing in 335 BCE, Aristotle defined tragedy as an imitation of a serious, complete action with magnitude, performed by actors rather than narrated, and effecting through pity and fear a purification (catharsis) of those emotions. He argued that the best tragedies depict a reversal of fortune caused by the hero's hamartia, a term whose original Greek etymology refers to an archer missing a target, meaning an error or frailty rather than outright vice.
How many ancient Greek tragedies have survived to the present day?
Only 32 of the more than one thousand tragedies performed in 5th-century Athens have survived, along with complete texts by Aeschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides. No tragedies from the earlier 6th century BCE survive at all. Among the extant works, Aeschylus' The Persians is recognized as the earliest surviving Greek tragedy.
What was the first bourgeois tragedy in Western drama?
The first true bourgeois tragedy is identified as George Lillo's 1731 play The London Merchant; or, the History of George Barnwell. In Germany, Gotthold Ephraim Lessing's Miss Sara Sampson, first produced in 1755, is considered the earliest example of the form known in German as Bürgerliches Trauerspiel.
What is catharsis and how does it relate to tragedy?
Catharsis is the emotional purification or relief that Aristotle argued tragedy produces in its audience through the experience of pity and fear. The tradition of tragedy has been described as invoking a paradoxical response: a "pain that awakens pleasure." Aristotle held that this purification of emotion was the proper goal of the tragic form.
What is the ekkyklema and how was it used in ancient Greek tragedy?
The ekkyklema was a platform hidden behind the scene in ancient Greek theatre that could be rolled out to display the aftermath of violent events too extreme to stage directly. A well-known example is its use in Aeschylus' Oresteia, when Agamemnon's body is wheeled out for the audience to see after his murder. Variations on the device continue to be used in theatre and other dramatic forms today.