Week 4:Daily Blog Day 2 – Tuesday, February 15, 2011

Daily Blog Day 2 – Tuesday, February 15, 2011

Question: Explain how the origins of theatre in Athens are tied to both religion and politics. Check out this resource.

            The origins of the Athenian theatre are tied to both religion and politics. This is showed not only symbolically in the plays but also the characters themselves in the words they say and the things that they did. Also, the plays took somewhat of a political stance on things like the current views of the time. We can learn a lot about history just by reading the plays put on for audiences of Athenians in Athens. One way we definitely come to realize how much religion was involved in the plays and theatre is in the facts. Apparently, the theatres in Athens were not for business purposes or even created for financial reasons. The Athenian theatres were paid for and taken care of by the Athenian government. These theatre productions were an integral part of an Athenian religious festival. This festival was called the City Dionysia. It is said that three tragic poets were chosen to preform or present their plays by a magistrate. This magistrate is called and archon. Supposedly, Archon was in charge of the City Dionysia. These three poets all presented a tetralogy. A tetralogy is a fancy word for a group of four plays. This is kind of like how we call two people singing together a duet in some cases. They also presented a satyr which occurred with the tetralogy one morning during the festival. Therefore, there was definitely major religious meaning and this was only one very minor example. Also, politics plays an important role in this too as it does everything else like I said above. There are so many ways religion and politics is included in the theater.