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The author of a tragedy was not just a writer of a script. When his work was approved for presentation at the state religious festival in honor of the god Dionysus. the state assigned him actors and a chorus. The author then had to perform the additional tasks of training the actors and chorus and of composing the music for the various songs of the actors and chorus and providing choreography for the chorus.
*Was a Greek poet who is known to have originally recited the Iliad and the Odyssey. *His date was pushed back as far as 1200BC
The word tragedy refers to "tragic drama"
tragedy stresses the vulnerability of human beings whose suffering is brought on by a combination of human and divine actions, but is generally undeserved with regard to its harshness. our reading is usually in translation, we miss the following elements which are additional aids to interpretation beyond the script of the play: scenery, inflection of actors' voices, actors' gestures and postures, costumes and masks, singing, dancing, sounds of the original language and its various poetic rhythms. The basic background is the existence, perhaps for centuries, of a chorus , with a leader, singing a song about some legendary hero; then the leader, instead of singing about the hero, began to impersonate him. Add spoken dialogue, and we have "tragedy" in the Greek form. Early tragedy may have been largely sung, like a cross between a modern oratorio and a modern opera. The very first prize for tragedy went to Thespis Each playwright would prepare a trilogy of three tragedies, plus an unrelated concluding comic piece called a satyr play
Ancient Greeks from the 5th century BC onwards were fascinated by the question of the origins of tragedy and comedy
Aristotle and a number of other writers proposed theories of how tragedy and comedy developed
Tragedy's origins are obscure, but it apparently started with the singing of a choral lyric (called the dithyramb) in honor of Dionysus. It was performed in a circular dancing-place (orchestra) by a group of men who may have impersonated satyrs by wearing masks and dressing in goat-skins According to tradition, the playwright Aeschylus added a second actor and Sophocles added a third.
*All actors were male *There were actors, chorus members(12 per tragedy), and extras *Since women were not aloud to take place in productions, men had to play female roles