Homer, Etc Examples of Greek

Homer, Etc

Examples of Greek Dramatic Theory: pathos, anagnorisis, and peripeteia in each of the following works: Aeschylus' "Oresteia," Euripides' "Alcestis," Sophocles' "Philoctetes," Euripides' "Hippolytus" and Aeschylus' "Prometheus Bound"

In the Greek dramatist's Aeschylus' early family drama of long-standing vengeance known as the "Oresteia," the warrior Agamemnon's fate evokes fear and pity or pathos in the heart of the viewer. The great warrior becomes subject to death at the hands of his vengeful and adulterous wife. The audience understands that death will eventually take us all, regardless of our merit; the gods have their way. Peripeteia, or awareness of a lie is invoked during the murder in the helplessness emotions of the chorus and Agamemnon who stress that the events of the murder are so unnatural they cannot happen, although they are. The "Oresteia" cumulates in the recognition all observers that the terrible revenge of a mother and a woman is inevitable, and Cassandra's prophetic sense of doom was the truth.

In Euripides' smaller, family drama "Alcestis," the emotion of pathos, or suffering as defined an essential ingredient of drama that stimulates audience pity and fear and thus gives relief from such emotions (from which the concept of catharsis is derived) comes from the inevitable fear the husband of the title character experiences at the prospect of his own demise, and the willingness of his wife to sacrifice her own life for her husband's life. The man first experiences peripeteia or a lack of recognition of the truth when he states his belief that his parents will sacrifice their own life for their son's life. But although this proposition is a lie, it is followed by Aristotle's third tragic element of anagnorisis, or the recognition that the man's wife is the only one who cares about her husband.

At the beginning of the play by Sophocles entitled "Philoctetes" after the main character, the narrator Chorus expresses its collective pity or feels pathos at the sight of the wounded, snake-bitten warrior, as Philoctetes has repeated attacks of violent pain. Gradually the Greek hero recognizes (peripeteia) that his visitors are the hated Greeks who once abandoned him, in disguise. Philoctetes denounces the foul plot and demands back his bow, realizing once again he is alone in the world. (anagnorisis)

In Euripides, "Hippolytus," pity and fear (pathos) is evoked by Phaedra's unbridled passion for her stepson Hippolytus. The recognition element of the drama (peripeteia) comes when both Phaedra and Hippolytus see that their mutually incompatible desires both for others (in the case of Phaedra) and also to be removed from others (as expressed in the character of the young, title son of Theseus) are inescapable. This recognition is shortly followed by the terrible peripeteia of Theseus that his wife has lied to him and he has cast off his son as nothing, for nothing. The final tragic anagnorisis comes with Athena's visit. Athena exposes Theseus' folly of his love for his now-dead wife, who commits suicide in grief at her inability to have the Artimis-loving Hippolytus, and is finally revealed as a liar.