Studies of the Greek Poets (Vol 2 of 2)

Studies of the Greek Poets (Vol 2 of 2)

Two Conditions for the Development of a National Drama.The Attic Audience.The Persian War.Nemesis the Cardinal Idea of Greek Tragedy.Traces of the Doctrine of Nemesis in Early Greek Poetry.The Fixed Material of Greek Tragedy.Athens in the Age of Euripides.Changes introduced by him in Dramatic Art.Law of Progress in all Art.schylus, Sophocles, Euripides.The Treatment of by Euripides.Menoikeus.Death of Polyneices and Eteocles.Polyxena.Iphigenia.Medea.Hippolytus.Electra and Orestes.Lustspiele.The Andromache.The Dramas of Orestes.Friendship and Pylades.Injustice done to Euripides by Recent Critics. The chapters on schylus and Sophocles have already introduced the reader to some of the principal questions regarding Attic tragedy in general. Yet the opening of a new volume justifies the resumption of this subject from the beginning, while the peculiar position of Euripides, in relation to his two great predecessors, suggests the systematic discussion of the religious ideas which underlay this supreme form of national art, as well as of the sthetical rules which it obeyed in Greece. Critics who are contented with referring the origin of the Greek drama to the mimetic instinct inherent in all humanity are apt to neglect those circumstances which [Pg 10]render it an almost unique phenomenon in literature. If the mimetic instinct were all that is requisite for the origination of a national drama, then we might expect to find that every race at a certain period of its development produced both tragedy and comedy. This, however, is far from being the case. A certain rude mimesis, such as the acting of descriptive dances or the jesting of buffoons and mummers, is indeed common in all ages and nations. But there are only two races which can be said to have produced the drama as a fine art originally and independently of foreign influences. These are the Greeks and the Hindoos. With reference to the latter, it is even questionable whether they would have composed plays so perfect as their famous Sakountala without contact with Hellenic civilization. All the products of the modern drama, whether tragic or comic, must be regarded as the direct progeny of the Greek stage. The habit of play-acting, continued from Athens to Alexandria, and from Rome to Byzantium, never wholly expired. The "Christus Patiens," attributed to Gregory of Nazianzus, was an adaptation of the art of Euripides to Christian story; and the representation of "Mysteries" during the Middle Ages kept alive the dramatic tradition, until the discovery of classic literature and the revival of taste in modern Europe led to the great works of the English, Spanish, French, and subsequently of the German theatre. ......Buy Now (To Read More)

Product details

Ebook Number: 47236
Author: Symonds, John Addington
Release Date: Oct 30, 2014
Format: eBook
Language: English