Greek Theatre - Scholar Quotes

H.B Stricker on the architecture of ancient theatrons

"The Greek theatre ... is invariably a structure of three completely independent elements, only partly deserving the name of building"

O.Taplin on Greek Theatre and Special effects

"Theatre of the mind"

H.B Stricker on theatre as religious worship

"The theatre was a sacred place, the actors were sacred persons, their action was sacred action, and it was performed at a sacred time"

A.Wiener on Sophocles' vs Euripides' use of the chorus

"Euripides' choruses seem to be less a

"collective character" than those of Sophocles"

A.Wiener on the relationship between the Chorus and the actors

"producing Greek tragedy in an essentially Greek manner is to think of the characters as Apollonian and the chorus as Dionysian, to approach each as a distinct entity with a distinct function, but each being an integral part of the whole production"

P.Cartledge on the relationship between Dionysus and comedy

"that god of fertility, regeneration and wine was a potent catalyst of self-liberating personality change"

P.Cartledge on Dionysus in Frogs

"remarkably, indeed pathetically human"

P.Cartledge on the chorus in Frogs

A.W Schlegel on Euripides' protagonists

"his characters generally suffer because they must, not because they will"

A.W. Schlegel on the function of the chorus

"the ideal spectator"

H.Foley on the power of Greek Choruses

"their effective interventions are verbal rather than physical"

H.Foley on Euripides' use of the chorus

"Euripides' interest in suffering victims leads him to flirt repeatedly with jeopardizing the survival of and stressing the pain and uncertainty of his chorus"

M. Damen on Tiresias in Bacchae

"Teiresias, the mortal prophet, rationalizes in sophistic language [...] and strips away the mystery from an essentially mysterious god"

E.R Dodds on the politics of ancient playwrights

"when a Greek dramatic poet had something he passionately wanted to say to his fellow citizens he felt entitled to say it"

E.R Dodds on the final lines of Oedipus Rex

"the last lines of the play [...] appear to suggest that in some sense Oedipus is every man and every man is potently Oedipus"

M. Barstow on sympathy for Oedipus

"His emotions, his thoughts, even his errors, have an ardent generosity which stirs our deepest sympathy"

M. Barstow on Oedipus' hermatia

"he was raised, by the very qualities that ultimately

wrought his ruin, to the height from which he fell"

L. Silberman on revelation in Oedipus Rex

"As Oedipus' human experience unfolds diachronically, the synchronic pattern of the god's curse is gradually revealed.

L. Silberman on the divine in Oedipus Rex

"The only evidence of [Apollo's] existence is the retrospective coincidence of the story of Oedipus' life and the prophecy

given at Oedipus' birth"

L. Silberman on Oedipus and sickness

"Oedipus takes Thebes' sickness upon himself as a kind of scapegoat or sacrificial victim"

S. Perris on sympathy in Bacchae

"The exodos provides a model of compassion, in which knowledge of guilt does not preclude sympathy"

Henrichs on violence in Greek tragedy

"It reeks of blood and is strewn with corpses"

Macintosh on death in Greek Tragedy

"death in tragedy is a culmination, not an ending"

GM. Grubb on Pentheus' characterization

"true to type, he will not be able to drink without being disgustingly drunk"

C. Segal on the symbolism of Dionysus

"a threat from outside to the stable order of the polis, a threat from the wild and the alien"

C. Segal on Pentheus' fate

"a poetic justice done to one who resists the god of fusion"

C. Segal on Dionysus and Pentheus

"both youth and adult, male and female, Dionysus embodies all that Pentheus has repressed in defining himself as the authoritarian king of Thebes"

N. Demand on the frog chorus in Frogs

"The frogs seem to many people to be irrelevant to the play as a whole"

RF. Moorton on Dionysus' mission in Frogs

"The Frogs begins with a project to restore one Athenian poet to life and ends with a project to regenerate all of Athenian society"

M. Habash on Dionysus and metatheatre in Frogs

"Aristophanes has Dionysos exchange acting and festival roles [...] thereby essentially celebrate his own festival"

M. Habash on Dionysus and the chorus in Frogs

"Dionysos becomes both a member of the Chorus and a literary judge or critic when he competes with the Chorus of Frogs in song"

HC Baldry on the Chorus in tragedy

offers "a brief means of escape from the otherwise unbearable pressure of the drama"

K.Dover on the politics of Frogs

"Old ways good, new ways bad"