Greek Drama Representative Writers | English Drama

 

Greek Drama, Representative Writers

Greekdrama, even after the centuries of its creation, still holds relevant for the modern audience for its situations and universal themes, lyrical diction, and intricate plots. Greek drama created an entirely new form of art.

Greekliterary artists continue to influence modern psychologists, philosophers, writers and thinkers in diverse fields.  Greek drama witnessed numerous artists of varied literary merit and some of the most prominent and chief representative figures are as under:

Aeschylus (525-456 BC)

Aeschylus was born in about 525 BC. He is earliest of the best known ancient Greek tragic dramatists. Aeschylus was very skillful at handling trilogy which refers to a group of three plays written to be performed successively by following sequential development of the story.

He raised up the dramatic presentation from a choral performance to a work of art. He significantly contributed towards the perfection of tragic form. For this he added a second character on the stage to create occasion for the dialogue.

Aeschylus, also, reduced the number of chorus from almost fifty to fifteen. He removed all spectacles of bloodshed from the stage. Aeschylus highlighted the importance of Greek drama through performance and not mere recitation.

Works of Aeschylus reflected a consciousness of the politics of his era specially Gracio Persian war. He is often remembered for the sublimity of his ideas and loftiness of his style. He enjoyed the same prestige in Greek period as Shakespeare enjoyed in Elizabethan period. Aeschylus wrote ninety plays and only seven of them survived. He died in 456 BC.

Aristophanes (450-385)

Aristophanes is the most famous writer of Greek comedies, was born in 450. He witnessed the disturbances caused by Peloponnesian War which stripped Athens of her position of dignity and eminence for being the cultural and political capital of Greece.

Aristophanes was the best-known practitioner of Old Comedy which was grounded in political satire and reformative in nature. His works reflected his keen consciousness of cultural, political, social and philosophical life of Athens society.

Literary appeal of Aristophanes was largely grounded in his witty dialogues, comic scenes and reformative satire. His dramas are still performed on the modern stage. He wrote about forty-four comedies of which only eleven survived. Aristophanes died in 385BC.

Euripides (485-406)

Euripides belongs to the troubled era of disturbances Athens faced as a direct consequence of war with Sparta. He was born in 485 in Attica. Euripides is last in the series of great Greek tragedians of fifth century.

Although he composed several plays but only nineteen of them survived. It is estimated that Euripides wrote more plays than the combined number of other two tragedians, Aeschylus and Sophocles.

Euripides is greatly accepted for being a keen innovator and experimenter who revived the form and content of traditional plays through his works. He portrayed strong female characters who were driven to violence after long and forceful suffering. His plays are more appropriately categorized as melodramas rather than pure tragedies.

Euripides is universally acknowledged as an artist of high-quality rhetorical skills. He has been considered as ‘the most tragic of Greek tragedians.’ He is greatly respected for his psychological insight.

Euripides was least successful in the dramatic competitions of festival of Dionysos as compared to other two tragedians of his era.

Sophocles (496-406)

Sophocles is regarded as the chief representative figure of Greek drama. He was born in Colonus in 485 BC.  He was very skilled at plot construction and the use of dramatic irony.

Sophocles regularly participated in Greek dramatic competitions. He won majority of these competitions as compared to other two great tragedians of his times. He is famous for bringing skillful innovations in Greek drama with respect to art of characterization and plot construction.

Plays of Sophocles reflect intense suffering of the human which is a natural consequence of their own actions. Greek philosopher Aristotle greatly praises Sophocles’ masterpiece Oedipus Rex for its plot construction and dramatic conventions.

His plays are still the chief concern of modern scholarship and many of them are being performed on the modern stage. Sophocles died in 406 BC.

Menander (342-292)

Menander was born in 342 BC. He is the chief proponent of New Comedy which deals with average characters and does not have any supernatural or heroic parts in its plot. He strongly influenced the development of European comedy.

Menander was not considered successful during his lifetime. Only one play of Menander survived though he wrote more than a hundred plays. He died in 292 BC.