Lecture 3Outline of Last Lecture I. City Dionysia: What is it?II. AristotleIII. AeschylusIV. SophoclesV. EuripidesVI. AristophanesVII. Myths to KnowII. The Chorus and Messenger in TheaterVII. CatharsisVIII. Climatic Form Outline of Current Lecture I. What Changes Did The Romans Make?II. Two Major Playwrights: Plautus and Terrance III. SenecaIV. HoraceV. Popular Entertainment For The RomansVI. Eventual Decline of Roman Comedy Current LectureI. What Changes Did The Romans Make?a. They cut out the chorus that Greek comedy hadb. They added musical company to the dialoguec. Emphasis on eves-dropping/mishearingd. Generally the main setting was in the streets while Greeks had it in theaters II. Two Major Playwrights: Plautus and Terrance a. Filled with stock charactersi. Stock character is a character that has a type; they don’t care about individuality b. Plautus wrote 20 plays that we still have todayi. New playwrights took some of his plots (structure) to use in modern timesc. Terrance was more subtle; he wrote 6 plays which survive todayi. Often combined 2 plots together or used 2 characters to describe both plots differently THAR 281 1st EditionIII. Senecaa. Wrote based on Greek mythsb. Chorus is of reduced importance (it is still present though)c. Protagonist doesn’t have a tragic flawi. They’re consumed with passion and emotiond. Violence on stage is acceptable nowIV. Horacea. Wrote work about theater called Art of Poetry (“Ars Poetica”)b. Much more concerned with making rulesc. The chorum said how a person should behave according to their given social status, age, etc.d. Thought the audience should receive some moral life lesson from the performance while also being entertained by it.V. Popular Entertainment For The Romans a. Some example included:i. Gladiator Fightsii. Chariot Racesiii. Executionsiv. Pantomime (Juggling, Gymnastics, Song, Dance, etc.)1. Mimes would perform in a found space (more informal) VI. Eventual Decline of Roman Comedya. Cities exist but people start moving out of the countryb. Smaller group of people performing nowc. Christianity rises as dominant social/political/religious authorityi. Christian church hates theater because they see it as a pagan; said actors were like prostitutes that would do so much for money; didn’t like the sexual content in plays ii. Ironically, the church eventually leads theater to coming
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