The requirements of a tragedy were allot forth in out of date Greece by Aristotle.
The Chorus
The chorus of a Greek tragedy was usually comprised of a group of men or women whose position in life was humble compared to the more central characters of the play. The chorus often commented on the choices and actions of the main characters, speaking or singing directly to the audience. They also invoked the intercession of the gods and prayed for assistance regarding the events of the play.Stories from Greek History
The Greek tragedies were meant to fair a protagonist of high-reaching birth struggling with a forceful caliber flaw as he navigated an essential knowledge in his duration. These characters and stories were most usually haggard from Greek chronicle and mythology. Sophocles wrote one of Western literature's most noted tragedies "Oedipus Rex," approximately a magnate of Thebes. The Oresteia --"Agamemnon," "The Libation Bearers" and "The Eumenides" -- a trilogy of plays written by Aeschylus, told the comedy of Monarch Agamemnon's go back familiar from the Trojan Battle, his homicide by his wife Clytemnestra and the avenging of his dying by his children Electra and Orestes.
The Tragic Hero
Aristotle stated that the tragic daredevil must be of nobiliary birth and within the method of the play evidence a tragic Slump due to an inborn flaw the constitution possesses, not some alien detail. In this road, the champion undergoes a psychological transformation, teaching him a class approximately his own flawed environment. Aristotle believed that the Slump of the champion was leading for the audience to witness, thanks to they were usually of a more humble birth, but could be moved to "fear and pity" at the sight of the high-born hero's undoing. The audience would then experience an empathetic and cathartic emotional connection to the character's experience. King Oedipus, in the play "Oedipus Rex," is considered to be the quintessential tragic hero.
For the Western universe, Greece is the birthplace of theatre and Ancient Greek tragedies the pattern for all tragedies to succeed. The characteristics of a Correct tragedy were place down by Aristotle in his "Poetics," and are even referred to when analysing tragedies nowadays. Though nowadays's tragedies don't normally engage heightened Tongue or verse, we all the more expect a tragic hero caught up in a monumental contest, repeatedly against his own internal flaws.
For the ancient Greeks, the idea that the gods controlled all of life's events, that no man had freedom to decide his own fate, was central and the chorus often reminded the play's characters and the audience of this belief.
Unity of Time and Place
Aristotle's "Poetics" required a tragedy to unfold within a unified time and place, all scenes happening in the same location in continuous time. This placed an urgency upon the play's protagonist; events continued to happen with no time for the characters to pause and reflect on what they should or should not do. They simply made choices and moved forward, as people frequently do in real life. The unity of place required the play to remain focused on the specified location, often requiring information from other locations to be delivered by messengers and allowing violent events to be enacted off-stage.
