Religious and Civic Contexts

Greek Theatre

In this course, Dr Rosie Wyles (University of Kent) provides an introduction to Greek theatre – specifically, the tragic and comic drama of fifth-century BC Athens. In the first lecture, we think about some of the religious and civic contexts for Greek theatre, including the importance of the annual dramatic festivals of fifth-century Athens: the Lenaia (January) and Great Dionysia (March/April). After that, in the second lecture, we think about the different genres of dramatic performance in fifth-century Athens – tragedy, comedy and satyr drama – before turning in the third and fourth lectures to consider two dialogic conventions in Greek drama: stichomythia and the agōn. In the fifth lecture, we think about how violence is presented in Greek drama, before turning in the sixth and seventh lectures to think about costume and the use of masks, respectively. In the eighth lecture, we think about the role of the chorus in Greek drama, while in the ninth lecture we explore the extent to which both tragedy and comedy engage with contemporary politics. In the tenth lecture, we think about the role of the gods, justice and fate in Greek drama, before turning in the eleventh and final lecture to think about the interaction between tragedy and comedy.

Please note: All quotations are quoted with two sets of line numbers: the first refers to numbering in the relevant English translation, the second (in brackets) refers to the line numbering in the original Greek, which is often different.

We use the following translations in this course:
– Oedipus the King – Robert Fagles in The Three Theban Plays (Penguin Classics, 1984)
– The Bacchae – David Franklin in Euripides: Bacchae (Cambridge Translations from Greek Drama) (2000)
– Aristophanes: Frogs – Judith Affleck and Clive Letchford in Aristophanes: Frogs (Cambridge Translations from Greek Drama) (2014)

Religious and Civic Contexts

In this lecture we explore some of the religious and civic contexts for Greek theatre, focusing in particular on: (i) the Theatre of Dionysus in Athens: its location, size and capacity; (ii) the dramatic festivals of Athens – the Lenaia (January) and the City Dionysia (March/April): the similarities and differences between the two ; (iii) the way that the dramatic festivals of Athens were funded, including the institution of the khorēgia; and (iv) the amount of money spent on the dramatic festivals.