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Parodos- Landon Meche
Parodos- Landon Meche
Parodos was the first choral passage in an ancient Greek drama recited or sung as the chorus enters the orchestra. Was first used in Athens

 Parodos | Greek theatre
Parodos | Greek theatre
Other articles where Parodos is discussed: Old Comedy: ...is explained and developed; the parodos, entry of the chorus; the contest, or agon, a ritualized debate between opposing principals, usually stock characters; the parabasis, in which the chorus addresses the audience on the topics of the day and hurls scurrilous criticism at prominent citizens; a series of farcical scenes;...
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"Jaw Dropping" endings

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You may have heard of "deus ex machina" endings in novels before. What are they? What's wrong with them? And how do you avoid them?

Let's start with a definition. According to Wikipedia, a deus ex machina ending is...

a plot device whereby a seemingly unsolvable problem is suddenly and abruptly resolved by the inspired and unexpected intervention of some new event, character, ability or object.

The literal translation is "god from the machinery" and it derives from Ancient Greek theater. The characters in the play would get themselves into a terrible mess, and the only way to sort it out was for the gods (or actors playing the gods) to emerge from the "machinery" of the stage and put the world to right again with their divine powers.

For our own plotting purposes, a deus ex machina ending means a contrived, awkward or unbelievable ending. It's one which fails to flow naturally and logically from the events that came before it.

An Example of a Deus ex Machina Ending

Imagine a detective in a good old-fashioned Whodunnit. We'll call him Smith.

Now, we know that Smith will unmask the murderer by the end of the novel (because that's what happens in crime fiction). But for this unmasking to satisfy to the reader, the name of the guilty party must come to Smith as a result of his own skills and efforts.

Smith spends the bulk of the novel searching for clues, interviewing suspects, piecing together the evidence. In short, he does all the things a detective usually does in a crime novel.

Sure, he makes mistakes as he goes. And his initial thoughts and theories are proved wrong. But the reader has faith that his skills will eventually lead him to the truth.

And eventually Smith would have discovered the identity of the murderer, if his creator had been any good at plotting novels. Unfortunately, though, the writer calls in the "gods" and settles on a contrived ending instead.

Smith, you see, has reached a seemingly hopeless situation...

All of his leads have come to nothing. To solve the crime, he needs a mental breakthrough (one of those moments in old-fashioned crime novels when the detective suddenly exclaims...

Of course, they did it with mirrors!

But instead of Smith experiencing an epiphany of this sort (which is what the reader hopes for and expects), we get a deus ex machina ending...

Smith just happens to walk in on the murderer in the process of strangling his latest victim. The killer is arrested, Smith gets a pat on the back, and everyone is happy. Everyone except for the novel's unsatisfied readers, of course.
Why are they left unsatisfied?
Because the crime was solved through Smith just happening to be in the right place at the right time, totally by chance.

The resolution came about because of forces outside the detective's control (by the Ancient Greek god of "luck", if you like). It didn't happen as a result of his own skills and efforts. That difference is critical.

So How Do You Avoid a Deus ex Machina Ending?

Keep the "gods" out of it. Leave it to the mortals in the novel to sort out their own problems. In practical terms, that means two things...

First, make sure that the eventual solution to the novel's problem comes about because of the character's own efforts. Whatever "breakthrough" happens in the third act of the novel, it needs to be an effect of something the character did or thought earlier in the story.

Second, plant "clues" to the resolution along the way, so it seems believable and logical to readers when it happens. If the resolution happens out of the blue, you'll have a deus ex machina ending. And that's not good!

To learn more about avoiding a contrived ending, check out the article on how to plot a novel's ending. You'll find plenty of examples there on how to make the ending believable and natural.

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How to Avoid a "Deus ex Machina" Ending | Novel Writing Help

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You may have heard of "deus ex machina" endings in novels before. What are they? What's wrong with them? And how do you avoid them? Let's start with a definition. According to Wikipedia, a deus ex machina ending is...

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 ancient Greek altar
especially : a small altar of Dionysus standing in the middle of the orchestra of a theater

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Sophocles added a third person to dramatic literature

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He was a play writer who rationalized beliefs towards gods and religions. Reduced participation in chorus.

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Euripides: Euripides, last of classical Athens's three great tragic dramatists, following Aeschylus and Sophocles. It is possible to reconstruct only the sketchiest biography of Euripides. His mother's name was Cleito; his father's name was Mnesarchus or Mnesarchides. One tradition states that his mother was

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the seating area section of an ancient Greek, Roman, and Byzantine theater. The theatron is one of the earliest and most pronounced parts of ancient theaters

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In Ancient Greek, theatron (θέατρον, pl. ... In modern Greek, the word theatro (θέατρο) has the same meanings as theatre; literally the place were a theatrical play is staged, but figuratively also has other meanings such as the audience within a theatre, the dramatic art ...

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a corresponding semicircular space in a Roman theater used for seating important persons

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the circular space used by the chorus in front of the proscenium in an ancient Greek theater; a corresponding semicircular space in a Roman theater used for seating important persons; the space in front of the stage in a modern theater that is used by an orchestra...

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In a Hellenistic theatre, the proskenion is a raised platform in front of the skênê, on which the actors perform.

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Definition of proskenion in the Definitions.net dictionary. Meaning of proskenion. What does proskenion mean? Information and translations of proskenion in the most comprehensive dictionary definitions resource on the web.

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the first of classical Athens' great dramatists, who raised the emerging art of tragedy to great heights of poetry and theatrical power.

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Aeschylus, (born 525/524 bc-died 456/455 bc, Gela, Sicily), the first of classical Athens' great dramatists, who raised the emerging art of tragedy to great heights of poetry and theatrical power.

Life and career

Aeschylus grew up in the turbulent period when the Athenian democracy, having thrown off its tyranny (the absolute rule of one man), had to prove itself against both self-seeking politicians at home and invaders from abroad. Aeschylus himself took part in his city's first struggles against the invading Persians. Later Greek chroniclers believed that Aeschylus was 35 years old in 490 bc when he participated in the Battle of Marathon, in which the Athenians first repelled the Persians; if this is true it would place his birth in 525 bc. Aeschylus' father's name was Euphorion, and the family probably lived at Eleusis (west of Athens).

Aeschylus was a notable participant in Athens' major dramatic competition, the Great Dionysia, which was a part of the festival of Dionysus. Every year at this festival, each of three dramatists would produce three tragedies, which either could be unconnected in plot sequence or could have a connecting theme. This trilogy was followed by a satyr play, which was a kind of lighthearted burlesque. Aeschylus is recorded as having participated in this competition, probably for the first time, in 499 bc. He won his first victory in the theatre in the spring of 484 bc. In the meantime, he had fought and possibly been wounded at Marathon, and Aeschylus singled out his participation in this battle years later for mention on the verse epitaph he wrote for himself. Aeschylus' brother was killed in this battle. In 480 the Persians again invaded Greece, and once again Aeschylus saw service, fighting at the battles of Artemisium and Salamis. His responses to the Persian invasion found expression in his play Persians, the earliest of his works to survive. This play was produced in the competition of the spring of 472 bc and won first prize.

Around this time Aeschylus is said to have visited Sicily to present Persians again at the tyrant Hieron I's court in Syracuse. Aeschylus' later career is a record of sustained dramatic success, though he is said to have suffered one memorable defeat, at the hands of the novice Sophocles, whose entry at the Dionysian festival of 468 bc was victorious over the older poet's entry. Aeschylus recouped the loss with victory in the next year, 467, with his Oedipus trilogy (of which the third play, Seven Against Thebes, survives). After producing the masterpiece among his extant works, the Oresteia trilogy, in 458, Aeschylus went to Sicily again. The chronographers recorded Aeschylus' death at Gela (on Sicily's south coast) in 456/455, aged 69. A ludicrous story that he was killed when an eagle dropped a tortoise on his bald pate was presumably fabricated by a later comic writer. At Gela he was accorded a public funeral, with sacrifices and dramatic performances held at his grave, which subsequently became a place of pilgrimage for writers.

Aeschylus wrote approximately 90 plays, including satyr plays as well as tragedies; of these, about 80 titles are known. Only seven tragedies have survived entire. One account, perhaps based on the official lists, assigns Aeschylus 13 first prizes, or victories; this would mean that well over half of his plays won, since sets of four plays rather than separate ones were judged. According to the philosopher Flavius Philostratus, Aeschylus was known as the "Father of Tragedy." Aeschylus' two sons also achieved prominence as tragedians. One of them, Euphorion, won first prize in his own right in 431 bc over Sophocles and Euripides.

Dramatic and literary achievements

Aeschylus' influence on the development of tragedy was fundamental. Previous to him, Greek drama was limited to one actor (who became known as the protagonist, meaning first actor, once others were added) and a chorus engaged in a largely static recitation. (The chorus was a group of actors who responded to and commented on the main action of a play with song, dance, and recitation.) The actor could assume different roles by changing masks and costumes, but he was limited to engaging in dialogue only with the chorus. By adding a second actor (the deuteragonist, or second actor) with whom the first could converse, Aeschylus vastly increased the drama's possibilities for dialogue and dramatic tension and allowed more variety and freedom in plot construction. Although the dominance of the chorus in early tragedy is ultimately only hypothesis, it is probably true that, as Aristotle says in his Poetics, Aeschylus "reduced the chorus' role and made the plot the leading actor." Aeschylus was an innovator in other ways as well. He made good use of stage settings and stage machinery, and some of his works were noted for their spectacular scenic effects. He also designed costumes, trained his choruses in their songs and dances, and probably acted in most of his own plays, this being the usual practice among Greek dramatists.

But Aeschylus' formal innovations account for only part of his achievement. His plays are of lasting literary value in their majestic and compelling lyrical language, in the intricate architecture of their plots, and in the universal themes which they explore so honestly. Aeschylus' language in both dialogue and choral lyric is marked by force, majesty, and emotional intensity. He makes bold use of compound epithets, metaphors, and figurative turns of speech, but this rich language is firmly harnessed to the dramatic action rather than used as mere decoration. It is characteristic of Aeschylus to sustain an image or group of images throughout a play; the ship of state in Seven Against Thebes, the birds of prey in Suppliants, the snare in Agamemnon. More generally, Aeschylus deploys throughout a play or trilogy of plays several leading motifs that are often associated with a particular word or group of words. In the Oresteia, for example, such themes as wrath, mastery, persuasion, and the contrasts of light and darkness, of dirge and triumphal song, run throughout the trilogy. This sort of dramatic orchestration as applied to careful plot construction enabled Aeschylus to give Greek drama a more truly artistic and intellectual form.

Aeschylean tragedy deals with the plights, decisions, and fates of individuals with whom the destiny of the community or state is closely bound up; in turn, both individual and community stand in close relation to the gods. Personal, social, and religious issues are thus integrated, as they still were in the Greek civilization of the poet's time. Theodicy (i.e., the justifying of the gods' ways to men) was in some sense the concern of Aeschylus, though it might be truer to say that he aimed through dramatic conflict to throw light on the nature of divine justice. Aeschylus and his Greek contemporaries believed that the gods begrudged human greatness and sent infatuation on a man at the height of his success, thus bringing him to disaster. Man's infatuated act was frequently one of impiety or pride (), for which his downfall could be seen as a just punishment. In this scheme of things, divine jealousy and eternal justice formed the common fabric of a moral order of which Zeus, supreme among the gods, was the guardian.

But the unjust are not always punished in their lifetime; it is upon their descendants that justice may fall. It was this tradition of belief in a just Zeus and in hereditary guilt that Aeschylus received, and which is evinced in many of his plays. The simplest illustration of this is in Persians, in which Xerxes and his invading Persians are punished for their own offenses. But in a play such as Agamemnon, the issues of just punishment and moral responsibility, of human innocence and guilt, of individual freedom versus evil heredity and divine compulsion are more complex and less easily disentangled, thus presenting contradictions which still baffle the human intellect.

Finally, to Aeschylus, divine justice uses human motives to carry out its decrees. Chief among these motives is the desire for vengeance, which was basic to the ancient Greek scheme of values. In the one complete extant trilogy, the Oresteia, this notion of vengeance or retaliation is dominant. Retaliation is a motive of Agamemnon, Clytemnestra, Aegisthus, and Orestes. But significantly, the chain of retaliatory murder that pursues Agamemnon and his family ends not by a perfect balance of blood guilt, not by a further perpetuation of violence, but rather through reconciliation and the rule of law as established by Athena and the Athenian courts of justice.

Aeschylus is almost unequaled in writing tragedy that, for all its power of depicting evil and the fear and consequences of evil, ends, as in the Oresteia, in joy and reconciliation. Living at a time when the Greek people still truly felt themselves surrounded by the gods, Aeschylus nevertheless had a capacity for detached and general thought, which was typically Greek and which enabled him to treat the fundamental problem of evil with singular honesty and success.

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Aeschylus, (born 525/524 bc-died 456/455 bc, Gela, Sicily), the first of classical Athens' great dramatists, who raised the emerging art of tragedy to great heights of poetry and theatrical power. Aeschylus grew up in the turbulent period when the Athenian democracy, having thrown off its tyranny (the absolute rule of one man), had to prove itself against both self-seeking politicians at home and invaders from abroad.

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an ancient Greek altar

especially : a small altar of Dionysus standing in the middle of the orchestra of a theater

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an ancient Greek altar; especially : a small altar of Dionysus standing in the middle of the orchestra of a theater... See the full definition

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The tritagonist is the third most important character of a narrative, after the protagonist and deuteragonist. In ancient Greek drama, the tritagonist was the third member of the acting troupe.

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What is TRITAGONIST? What does TRITAGONIST mean? TRITAGONIST meaning, definition & explanation

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A greek poet was the first to interweave choral song with an actor’s speeches.

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Thespis: Thespis, Greek poet, said to have been born in the deme (district) of Icaria. According to ancient tradition, Thespis was the first actor in Greek drama. He was often called the inventor of tragedy, and his name was recorded as the first to stage a tragedy at the Great (or City) Dionysia (c.

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A skene is a building behind the playing area that was originally a hut for the changing of masks and costumes but eventually became the background before which the drama was enacted.

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Skene: Skene, (from Greek skēnē, "scene-building"), in ancient Greek theatre, a building behind the playing area that was originally a hut for the changing of masks and costumes but eventually became the background before which the drama was enacted. First used c. 465 bc, the skene was originally a small

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The leading character, hero, or heroine of a drama or other literary work.

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What is PROTAGONIST? What does PROTAGONIST mean? PROTAGONIST meaning, definition & explanation

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The character that is the second most important person besides the protagonist.

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Deuteragonist definition and meaning | Collins English Dictionary

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Deuteragonist definition: (in ancient Greek drama ) the character next in importance to the protagonist , esp the... | Meaning, pronunciation, translations and examples

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Hypocrite comes from the Greek word “hypokrites”, which means an actor.

Their work was interpreting or judging what to say behind a mask.

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Parodos was the first choral passage in an ancient Greek drama recited or sung as the chorus enters the orchestra. Was first used in Athens

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Other articles where Parodos is discussed: Old Comedy: ...is explained and developed; the parodos, entry of the chorus; the contest, or agon, a ritualized debate between opposing principals, usually stock characters; the parabasis, in which the chorus addresses the audience on the topics of the day and hurls scurrilous criticism at prominent citizens; a series of farcical scenes;...

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Religious Festivals in Honor of Dionysus- Lily Franques 

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Religious Festivals in Honor of Dionysus- Lily Franques 

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It was celebrated during Greek month Elaphebolion (March-April). It was held in the city of Dionysia. It was attended by all the Athenian citizens. It was an ancient Greek festival held in Athens in which tragedy, comedy, and satyric. drama originated.

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Table of Contents

This article was most recently revised and updated by

Great Dionysia, also called City Dionysia, ancient dramatic festival in which tragedy, comedy, and satyric drama originated; it was held in Athens in March in honour of Dionysus, the god of wine. Tragedy of some form, probably chiefly the chanting of choral lyrics, was introduced by the tyrant Peisistratus when he refounded the festival (534/531 bc), but the earliest tragedy that survives, Aeschylus' Persai, dates from 472.

The festivals were attended by all Athenian citizens (likely women as well as men) and visitors from throughout Greece. In the tragic competition, each of three tragic poets wrote, produced, and probably acted in three tragedies on a single theme. Each poet also presented a satyr play, which treated some heroic subject in burlesque fashion. Judges, chosen by lot, awarded a prize to the best poet. In comedy, introduced in 486, five poets competed for the prize, each with one play. The satyr play was always the work of a tragic poet, and the same poet never wrote both tragedies and comedies. In 440 comedy was also introduced into the Lenaea, the minor festival of Dionysus held in January, and tragedy was added 10 years later.

Chelsey Parrott-Sheffer.

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Great Dionysia, also called City Dionysia, ancient dramatic festival in which tragedy, comedy, and satyric drama originated; it was held in Athens in March in honour of Dionysus, the god of wine. Tragedy of some form, probably chiefly the chanting of choral lyrics, was introduced by the tyrant Peisistratus when he refounded the festival (534/531 bc), but the earliest tragedy that survives, Aeschylus' Persai, dates from 472.

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{Masks} Masks were made of linen and had hair attached. Masks made it easier to portray more than one character. The main job of a mask was to show a transformation into something more mythical (a god or satyr).
{Costumes} Most actors wore mainly robes and platform shoes called Cothurni. Their costumes were made of linen, leather, wood, and cork. Costumes were made light weight for easy costume changes since actors had to illustrate different people.

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Theatre masks

Greek theatre masks were made of stiffened and painted linen so none have survived to the present day. We only know what they looked like because theatre was so popular in Greek and Roman times that models of actors and masks were made in other materials such as terracotta, stone and bronze and depicted on gems and in paintings and mosaics. With its exaggerated, grotesque features, this terracotta model shows the mask worn by the old man character in many comedies of the 300s BC and later. He has a wide grin, furrowed brow and bald head and wears a wreath with ivy leaves and clusters of berries. The masks worn in tragedies were different, with idealised features set in calm, serious, or sometimes pained expressions.

Masks and the god Dionysos

Masks had certain practical uses: their distinct features made characters recognisable at a distance; they made it easier for the three actors used in plays to play more than one part each; they enabled the all-male casts to play both men and women and some experts claim that the masks helped amplify the voice so that it could be heard at the back of the large open-air theatres. However, the most significant role of the mask was that of transformation: an ordinary man could go beyond his real identity and become a mythological hero or a lusty satyr, a foolish old man or a beautiful young woman, a god or a slave. In this disguise he could say and do things that could not be said and done in everyday life, and could present to the audience events, actions and ideas that were horrifying or ridiculous, inspiring or fantastic.

Throughout the Greek world, performances of plays were usually connected with worship of the god Dionysos. It is the idea of transformation that lies at the root of this association. Although Dionysos is often thought of simply as the god of wine, it is the transformational power of wine that most characterises him. Dionysos was fundamentally the god of changeability: grapes become wine, sober becomes drunk, human becomes animal, order becomes chaos.

A theatre festival

While we refer to Greek theatre, almost all the Greek plays we have were written and first performed in Athens and it was in Athens that Greek theatre as we know it was invented, developed and reached its height. In Athens there were three annual festivals of Dionysos at which plays were performed, the most important being the City Dionysia, which took place in March. The festival lasted five or six days. Three sets of three tragedies, each followed by a so-called satyr play, and five comedies were performed. The productions were paid for partly by the state and partly by rich individuals as a form of contribution to the well-being of the city. Many aspects of Greek culture were very competitive and the festivals took the form of competitions with great prestige to be gained by the winning playwrights and citizen-producers.

Attending the theatre was very much a communal and civic event. Audiences were large - perhaps 15,000 each day - and were made up of important individuals such as the priests of Dionysos and members of the Athenian government, who had front-row seats, ordinary Athenian citizens, resident and other foreigners, perhaps women and possibly even children and some slaves. The City Dionysia began with a magnificent procession carrying an image of Dionysos into the theatre. This was followed by sacrifices and feasting. At some stage before the four days of performance began, the names of citizens who had carried out services for the city were read out. Then the money paid to Athens as tribute by the subject cities of the Athenian empire, all of whom were required to send a representative, was piled up in the theatre. Finally, the orphaned children of warriors killed in battle who had reached the age of manhood paraded into the theatre dressed in full armour. Their upbringing had been paid for by the city and they were now formally acknowledged as citizens. The plays that followed these demonstrations of civic identity and of Athenian power dealt with human behaviour and aspirations, with right and wrong, with politics and with the nature and power of the gods. Through its transformed world of mythical and fantastic characters and stories, elaborate costumes, music, dance and masks, theatre forced the city of Athens to scrutinise both itself and the nature of human life.

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Teaching History with 100 Objects - A Greek theatre mask

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This terracotta model of a theatre mask is an example of the sort of evidence we have to use to find out about ancient Greek drama. Theatre is one of the most famous and most important legacies of ancient Greece to western culture, but ancient theatre performances and the context in which they took place were very different from what we experience today.