Classical and Hellenistic Greece
I. “Classical” style and legacy.
A. The “Golden Age” of Athens.
B. Pericles and Athenian democracy.
C. The reinvention of the “hero.”
II. Temple architecture.
A. Column capitals.
1. Doric.
2. Ionic.
3. Corinthian.
B. The Pasteum.
C. The Acropolis (the “high city”).
1. Parthenon (ratio: 1:2 [+1]; doric column capitals).
2. Erechtheion (note “caryotids”).
3. Temple of Athena Nike (Ionic).
III. Sculpture.
A. The Egyptian-influenced Kouros.
B. Classical proportion and contrapposto.
1. Kritios Boy (a “standing youth”).
2. Doryphorus (“The Spear Bearer”).
3. Apoxyomenos (“The Scraper”).
C. The corporeal incarnation of the spiritual.
IV. Theatre.
A. Origins.
1. The mythology of Dionysus.
2. The dythramb.
3. The theatron.
4. The orchestra.
5. Thespis and Hypocritus.
B. Aristotle's Poetics.
1. “Peter Cotton Tail Drank My Scotch.”
2. The tragic hero.
3. Catharsis.
C. Oedipus Rex/Antigone, by Sophocles.
V. Philosophy.
A. The Pre-Socratics.
B. The Sophists.
C. Socrates and Plato.
1. The Theory of Forms.
2. The Allegory of the Cave.
D. Aristotle.
1. Empirical Observation.
2. Logic.
VI. Hellenization.
A. Alexander the Great.
B. Syncretism.
1. Many myths and one philosophy.
C. Assimilation.
1. Many poleis and one cosmos.
2. Koine Greek.
D. Sculpture.
1. Nike of Samathrace.
2. Laocoon and His Sons.
3. Geek-influenced Buddhist sculpture (the Kushan Period in India).
Excerpts from Aristotle's Poetics
Tragedy is an imitation of an action that is serious, complete, and possessing magnitude; in embellished language, each kind of which is used separately in the different parts; in the mode of action and not narrated; and effecting through pity and fear the catharsis of such emotions.
The imitation of the action is the plot.
Necessarily, therefore, there are in tragedy six constituent elements: Plot, Characters, Thought, Diction, Melody, and Spectacle . . . but the most important of them is the organization of the events [the Plot].
[Thought refers to the thematic ideas presented in the performance; Spectacle refers to the visual elements-- staging, lighting, costumes, etc.; Melody refers to the rhythms and textures of all the sounds that occur, not just language but inanimate physical sounds, pauses, music, etc.]
Tragedy is not an imitation of [humankind] but of actions and of life . . . Consequently, it is not for the purpose of presenting their characters that the agents engage in action, but rather it is for the sake of their actions that they take on the characters they have . . . What is more, without action there could not be a tragedy, but there could be without characterization.
Now a thing must have a beginning, a middle, and an end. A well-constructed plot . . will neither begin at some chance point nor end at some chance point.
The poet's [playwright's] function is not to report things that have happened, but rather to tell of such things as might happen . . Poetry, therefore, is a more philosophical and higher thing than history, in that poetry tends rather to express the universal, history rather the particular fact.
Among plots and actions of the simple type, the episodic form is the worst. I call episodic a plot in which the episodes follow one another in no probable or inevitable sequence . . . there is a vast difference between following from and merely following after [cf.the logical fallacy of “post hoc, ergo propter hoc”].
A good [person] ought not to be shown passing from prosperity to misfortune . . . nor an evil [person] rising from ill fortune to prosperity [for neither of these inspire both pity and fear] . . . We are left with the [person] whose place is between these two extremes. Such is the [person] who . . . does not fall into misfortune through vice or depravity, but falls because of some mistake . . .
It follows that the plot which achieves excellence will necessarily be single in outcome . . . and will consist in a change of fortune, not from misfortune to prosperity, but the opposite from prosperity to misfortune, occasioned not by depravity but by some great mistake . . .