D. Nicholas Rudall on "What We Call Greek Tragedy"

Sponsored by the University of Chicago's Franke Institute for the Humanities, the Franke Forum is a series of free public talks by renowned University scholars.
This Franke Forum talk, "What We Call Greek Tragedy" is given by D. Nicholas Rudall, Professor Emeritus in the Department of Classics and Founding Director of Court Theatre.
The commonplace term "Greek Tragedy" diffuses our necessary analytical concentration on the following facts: the surviving plays were written in the sixty year period of Athenian dominance and decline by Athenian authors and were frequently a response to current events which deeply affected the polis. The plays assumed enormous political and artistic significance because they were performed only once in the Theatre of Dionysus for almost the entire enfranchised male population of the city.

[@Sea_ss]

Lecture really begins at 7:32

[@certaindeathawaits]

Thank you!

[@bellringer929]

I wish we could make introductions a little brief.

[@edwardrichardson8254]

What is he talking about at 9:20 "Why is it there's nothing we can properly call tragedy for 2000 years until Shakespeare"? Shakespeare's tragedies have more in common with Roman tragedies, which he freely lifted from - He's Seneca wearing tights instead of a toga. In fact, Shakespeare's first tragedy is so Roman to the core it disgusts Shakespearian scholars to this day (Romans were big on gory spectacle) and T. S. Eliot referred to it as an abomination that should be ignored: "Titus Andronicus." This gentleman says Shakespeare is some kind of Greek rebirth but all of his about a half-dozen Greco-Roman plays are Roman, not Greek! The gentleman then makes a hamfisted analogy between empire and tragedy, going so far as to explain the heyday of tragedy as a function of empire. He's not wrong, he just needs to drill down further: more like a function of money, which is what one needs to chisel a theater out of the side of a mountain and put on good shows and provide comfortable seating. And that's exactly what they got w/ the Theorika - Athenian politicians vote-buying w/ populism by paying people to go to the theater (Imagine if the US federal govt paid people to go to the movies). But conversely, the Theorika contributed to their downfall! As the Macedonians took over, the Athenians had blown the treasury (really "protection" money Athens had coerced smaller, less powerful island-states to pay to be in the Delian League - whether they wanted to be or not - as Athenians colonized their islands) on vanity projects like the Parthenon. Just the blinged out Athena Parthenos statue in the Acropolis was worth the equivalent of 300 triremes! At this point Athens' laughable democracy had fallen so low that the politicians were not just paying people to go to the theater during four major religious festivals, they were paying them to vote and they were paying mercenaries to fight their wars with the end result: Philip of Macedon gobbled them up. After his unexpected assassination, his son Alexander III took over (aka Alexander the Great) and the Spartans begged the Athenians to help them rise up against Alexander. Many Athenians pleaded to Greek politician Demades to use the Theorika fund to build triremes to aid the Spartans, Demades' response was basically "I will do so but you will have to use your own money to go to theater." That was a bridge too far for them. Some people just want a full belly and Netflix. If the Athenian Empire logically provided the zeitgeist for Greek tragedy, then why did Alexander's much more vast Hellenic Empire not become some kind of ancient Hollywood then? Well, it did! The Greeks built theaters everywhere across the Middle East and Asia, same as the Romans, and they had original tragedies. One has to remember this is archaeology. The very same individual mistakenly saying tragedy "disappeared for 2000 years" also says we're blessed to have the 30 or so surviving examples of Athenian tragedy. You don't get tenure being a scholar of Roman tragedies, or Alexandrian tragedies, although we have the biographies of many Hellenistic playwrights by commentators and lexicographers in the 10th century Byzantine encyclopedia the Suda. Information on the performances of these tragedies and satyr plays comes down to us mainly through inscriptions. Someone may want to point out to the scholar this thing called Christianity. St. Augustine refers to the theater as a "foul plague spot" and even the abominable rites of Cybele have to look down to see the Roman theater in his writings. They banned theater. The scholar may want to look at the Interregnum in England when they became, for a moment, a radical Protestant military dictatorship. What did they do? They banned theater, actors, Shakespeare... all of it. When the nation bans its greatest writer, you know something is up. For this scholar to pretend nothing happened between the 2nd century BC and Queen Elizabeth is crass and frankly unprofessional.

[@williametheridge1764]

excellent talk

[@frankstein9982]

It's a bit of a throwback to hear a classical scholar say "the Trojan War was in 1200 BCE" . We don't do that anymore, because there was no single Trojan war.

[@lilliannieswender266]

Thank you for posting this very interesting lecture.

[@frankeinstitute]

Glad you enjoyed it!

[@annie04141]

Wonderful discussion. Can anyone point me to the book which Northrop Frye discusses the relationship between tragedy and empire?

[@steveworraton9426]

I really love World Literature ❤️

[@user-uz8fq6cs7e]

Me too!!!

[@henning6158]

What is wrong with you😂

[@levisutherland7829]

Over 3 years old with under 2k views..

[@iguanasdf563]

It seems that there are only a few who study World Literature..

[@spicerc1244]

@@iguanasdf563 Wow you're so smart, Paul. I guess you read the tragedians in their entirety? Or were you more likely just talking a level-100 World Literature course and using that term to cover literally any classical text?

[@michaelaristidou2605]

Omg! Bla blaaa in the begining! Let the guy talk already!

[@KimChi-wi3vq]

Idk how my teacher found this 🙂

[@michaelaristidou2605]

They are called Greek tragedies because, even though they were played in Athens, they refered to stories that interest and involved all Greeks. Most of the actors were not Athenians, and the chorus sang in Doric. His comment on Aristotle (became 'Macedonian') i didn't quite get. Macedonias were Greek too. The Trojans were Greek too.

[@frankstein9982]

Euripides moved to Macedonia, too, at the end of his career. Also, these dramas were performed all over the (then) Greek world, including Sicily (aka Magna Grecia). I'm sorry to say Rudall's argument doesn't make a whole lot of sense. PS, Michael: in the Homeric / Tragic optics the Troians were Phrygians / Persians, living a much more luxurious and decadent life.

[@nuri2318]

Trojans were greek? ? Really? Source please

[@Sea_ss]

The Trojans were Luwians an indo-European group native to Anatolia (modern day Turkey).

[@juan-ls1jj]

30:33 the poor guy fall asleep xd

[@bucsiarpad3866]

no

[@juan-ls1jj]

@@bucsiarpad3866 yep

[@bellringer929]

Why are so few young people in the audience? I am not young myself. 😜

[@mahsaomranian5573]

i was thinking about the saem thing, were there students in the attendance?