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A Course by Cristina López Barrio

GREEK TRAGEDY
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NOTES ON GREEK TRAGEDY

Greek tragedy is one of my favorite themes not only because I am

passionate about theater, but also because the elements and concepts that
define it have served me to build the plot of some of my novels. The
dramatic effect that its application produces is surprising.

The origin of Greek tragedy seems to be found in the dithyramb, which

consisted of ritual dances in honor of the god Dionysus. Funeral songs and
elegies for the suffering of a hero, whether god or human. Gradually it
evolves until there is a separation between the celebrants, converted into a
chorus, and the spectators of the ritual. With the appearance of actors, the
chorus becomes an intermediary and guide for the public, supporting or
reproving the hero.

The tragic feeling has also been covered by other authors, writers, and
philosophers. The tragic element present in Greek tragedy is based on a
belief: that the ultimate reason for the success or failure of what humans
undertake depends on a divinity, or on an unknown force, let us call it
chance, or on the flow of life, but not on men. Shakespeare said, "As flies to
wanton boys are we to the gods."

For his part, Goethe affirmed that there is no way out of this tragic feeling
because it would vanish if it found a solution. The tragic poses a conflict
between God, man, and the world.

For Miguel de Unamuno, the tragic is an attempt by man to understand the

meaning of his own existence. This is how he expresses it in The Tragic
Meaning of Life. The tragic is almost a philosophy, a way of facing life.
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It is, of course, in Aristotle's Poetics where the basic concepts of Greek

tragedy are established. To better explain each of them I will take as an
example one of my favorite tragedies: Oedipus Rex, by Sophocles.

A) IMMESIS: This refers to imitation. In tragedy, reality is imitated by means of

acting characters.

B) KATHARSIS: We have already talked about the cathartic effect that

literature has, as purging or purification of the passions.

In this case tragedy produces the identification of the spectator with the
emotions and sufferings experienced by the heroes. Compassion and fear
are the feelings that tragedy should provoke in the spectator, and both are
present in Oedipus Rex. We pity Oedipus for the cruel fate to which he has
been subjected. He flees Corinth to avoid killing his father and marrying his
mother, and ends up doing so unknowingly because Polybius and Medepe
were not his real parents. At the same time, it produces a sense of horror to
learn that he has married his mother and had four children with her, without
knowing it. In Carlos García Gual's book, tragedy says,

“The spectators, purified of terror and compassion, understood that through

the bloody destruction of the heroes the greatness and fragility of the human
being was expressed.” In this process of catharsis, they freed themselves from
those passionate affections and clarified their painful feelings by meditating
on the sufferings of the human being dragged to his limits by his own error.

C) ANAGNORISIS: This is one of the concepts that I like the most and that
produces the greatest effect in a story. It is the change of knowledge of a
character during part of the tragedy, which causes the drama to be
unleashed. In Oedipus Rex it occurs at the moment when Oedipus finds out
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that the man he killed at the crossroads was Laius, King of Thebes, his real
father, and that therefore he married Jocasta, his mother. He is the murderer
she is looking for, the culprit of the plague ravaging the city. This change of
knowledge in the character triggers the tragedy. Oedipus gouges out his
eyes and is exiled from Thebes, and Jocasta hangs herself.
The mandate of the tragedy is thus fulfilled: Know thyself. Oedipus discovers
his true identity. The truth is painful, but purifying. The concept of anagnorisis
is linked to the character, and katharsis to the spectator.

D) HAMARTIA: Error or fault committed by the hero in making a wrong

decision through error of judgment or ignorance that precipitates him to
catastrophe.

Oedipus makes the wrong decision to leave Corinth, where he lived with his
adoptive parents, but he does it out of ignorance, because of an error in
judgment since he thinks that by moving away from them he’ll chase away
the prophecy of the oracle to kill his father and marry his mother.

E) PATHOS: Aristotle refers to the destructive action that causes pain. It

passes from the one who produces it to the one who suffers from it. Before
pathos we also feel compassion and fear that something similar may happen
to us, that we may be left in the hands of destiny in such a discouraging way.
There could be several destructive actions in Oedipus: the decision to leave
Corinth, the decision to continue the search for Laius' murderer, or a sum of
both that finally provokes the event.

F) HUBRIS: It can be understood as a concept similar to Christian sin. The

hero acts haughtily, proudly, is carried away by passions, there is a loss of
control, with his behavior leading to the physical or moral death of the
character. Let's look at the fascinating hubris in the example proposed.
Oedipus commits hubris when Tiresias arrives in the city and tries to
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convince him to stop making inquiries about Laius' murderer. Oedipus does
not listen to him. He gets carried away by pride. He wants to know, he needs
the truth, and besides, he is the king of Thebes, he already brought them
glory once when he saved them from the sphinx and he will do it again. This
is the hubris that Oedipus commits, pride, which causes him to come to
experience the drama of his truth, unleashing the tragedy.

G) ELEOS: Compassion and pity. Aristotle affirmed that the compassion of

the spectator can only be produced when the misfortune that Oedipus
suffers is undeserved. There can be no moral guilt in the hero if not a tragic
guilt, i.e. a failure, a fall without logical reason, by ignorance. We have already
analyzed in this sense the compassion that moves the story of Oedipus. The
tragic is fulfilled in all its splendor. There is no apparent way out; the failure
committed by the hero triggers the climax.

BIBLIOGRAPHY
-Poetics, Aristotle. Editorial Taurus

©Copyright: Cristina López Barrio