¶ … structure of ancient and modern dramas to highlight their differences and similarities. The paper also shows how drama evolved over the centuries with references to Greek, Elizabethan and Modern plays.
MODERN AND ANCIENT DRAMA: A COMPARISON
Drama has an inherent ability to adapt itself to the thinking and wishes of the society in which it takes birth. Therefore modern drama with all its intensity, relevance and eloquence is certainly more popular among modern audiences than its ancient counterpart. Still we cannot deny the importance of ancient dramatic concepts, models and devices in the development and evolution of modern drama. While ancient plays are mostly remembered for their grandeur and myths, close analysis reveals that there is more to them than meets the eye. All ancient Greek tragedies contain some similar elements, which set them apart from tragedies of later eras. While they basically concentrated on highlighting the significance of myths, something which modern audience doesn't quite appreciate, ancient playwrights were nonetheless the first ones to give us a proper definition of a tragedy and they were ones who developed the concept of a tragic hero.
Aristotle in his Magnus-opus Poetics (330 B.C.) created the first model of a
He was of the view that a tragic hero must be a highborn, someone who is born into nobility with almost everything in his power. He should also possess a tragic flaw that would ultimately bring about his doom. Most ancient playwrights including Sophocles and Euripides followed this model. In Sophocles' play Oedipus, for example, the hero indeed enjoys a very high position in the society, "I am, myself, world-famous Oedipus," and true to Aristotle's model, he too possesses a tragic flaw which in this case was arrogance. This tragic flaw leads him to his doom which is clear from the closing speech of Choragos where he says, "Men of Thebes: look upon Oedipus. This is the king who solved the famous riddle And towered up, most powerful of men. No mortal eyes but looked upon him with envy, Yet in the end ruin swept over him."
Shakespeare was deeply influenced by Greek tragedies and this is clear from the model that he followed in his famous tragedies namely Hamlet, Macbeth and Julius Caser. Not only did his tragic heroes possess 'one fatal flaw', they were also members of royal families mostly kings and dukes. Shakespeare…
Another notable development and contribution of ancient from Greek is the Olympics. The event was begun in Greek as an entertainment session but later evolved into an international event. Additional invention of Greek is the architecture. The Greek were immensely talented in art and, therefore, the exemplary architectural inventions and developments in the modern world today. They all can trace the history of the building system in this ancient
Ancient Historians Influential Ancient Historians Faces of History: Historical Inquiry from Herodotus to Herder by Donald R. Kelley In his book, which is written in a scholarly, colorful, and interesting style, and is as rich with thought-provoking questions as it is lean on assumptions, author Kelley goes to great lengths to set the stage for every historian's work that he discusses. On page 3, he says that "the difficulty" in writing about ancient
Ancient Greece developed eastern side Mediterranean a series loosely connected City-States. Here seeds modern science. Greek philosophers / scientists, Plato Aristotle (Hellenic Era) wealth devote time study natural phenomena, abstract ideas mathematics, astronomy..ID Ancient Greece: Overview Ancient Greece is often called the cradle of civilization because the city-states of Greece, most notably Athens, gave birth to concepts that still inform modern life, such as the significance of empirical, rationalist science and the
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The cultures shifted from a primarily agrarian economic base to one that used metal as a means to craft practical and ritual objects. In addition to the ritual cauldrons that were emblematic of the Xia dynasty, other uses of advanced metallurgical techniques include the manufacturing of "jue," vessels used to hold a grain alcohol beverage commonly translated as "wine," (Class unit: 12). In fact, bronze objects were cast en
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