Thoughts on the origin of drama or the essence of drama

Prehistory

In ancient GreeK, more than 2700 years ago,the farmers used to celebate a Harvest party togheter in Spring. And they would go singing, dancing and drinking . They would probably form small groups called choruses.

In the 8th century BC, Ancient history began in Greece. So, there were new tools:

•The alphabet

•The State

•The contact with other cultures (Middel East)

A century later, 7th, the first literary written documents appeared.

Literary poetry was born under the influence of:

Those popular songs (Harvest party)

Epic poetry (such a The Iliad, by Homer)

The culture of Middel East

The State started organizing those parties in Spring, including musical competitions where the lyric poets presented their songs - poems

The ancient Greeks thought that the poets were inspired by gods and they had a mission, the mission of teaching society.

They taught ethic principles: balance, moderation, self-control...

Winnig in a musical competition gave the poets fame, renown.

In the 5th century a lot of great changes happened in Greece:

The Athenians became leaders of Greece

The success of democracy

Sophists

The birth of tragedy

Sopists were the first teachers who earned money by theaching

They thought that all true certitud is unattainable: Humans can only have an opinion, we can’t kwon the Truht. This concept of the relativity of truth is called Relativism.

So, they taught young men to prepare them for their careers:

The art of public speaking: Rethoric

The theory and pactice of arguing

Here, there is no truth, there is no lie.

It depends on the perspective.If you look at the draw as a whole, you’ll probably see a spiral.

And if you look at only one curve line, you’ll probably see a circle.

Which is usually our perspective?

Humans usually look at a reality from the perspective of our own life experiences.

And this is Relativism.

Relativism supposes that a unique reality can be perceived in different ways by different people. So, we must learn to look at a reality from another point of view and speak up our opinions.

… And the ancient poets took this an account.

The ancient poets changed the old lyric poems into a new literary form, tragedy.

They borrowed the heroes from epic poems and they showed them facing big fundamental problem, and having doubts, making mistakes, messing up, suffering and causing sufferings to others. They showed their souls.

What was this for?

The tragic poets showed this for us to able to walk a mile in someone else’s shoes, to able to look at a reality from another person’ s point of view.

Sorrow or death are only instruments.

The essence of tragedy is that you can find out about important, fundamental subjects through the main character’ s experience and find your own answers. There is no dogmatism.

This is the essence of tragedy and the gist of my talk today.

Subject/matters of drama

Chance

Sorrow

Which is more important the law of God or the law of society?

The role of women, the role of slaves

The insolence of the leader

What shall we do with our more unmentionable wishes? Ambition, Passion, Temptation, Obsession... on so on.

Finally,

In my opinion, the ancient tragedy has three highlighted features.

It is a lyrical, philosophical and popular genre.

Nowadays, you can also find an art form with these three features: it’s the soul of the ancient drama, but at the cinema.