Department of Greek & Roman Classics H903: Honors Greek Theater and Society
TTh 1010-1130, AB 306
Professor Robin Mitchell-Boyask
Office: AB 327 Phone: 1-3672 Hours: 9-10 TThF
robin@temple.edu | http://www.temple.edu/classics/dramadir/
Description: This course aims to introduce students to the nature of ancient Greek drama, both as an art form and as a product of a specific historical society. It aims to address fundamental questions about the nature and purpose of theater in the ancient world: is this art just entertainment or does it engage and comment on the problems of Athens? How and why did this society invent theater in the Western world? A secondary, but still central, aspect of this course involves asking questions about the relationship of Greek drama to the modern world: why do new versions of plays about Oedipus, Antigone and Dionysus keep popping up in places as diverse as New York, Utah, South Africa and China? How can ancient drama be staged now in a way that is both responsible to the surviving texts and stimulating to contemporary audiences? This course aims to introduce students to ancient Greek theater through close readings of the surviving texts, through viewings of modern productions of ancient theatrical works, and through students' own recreations of Greek performative media. Students will examine and experience ancient Greek drama both as a product of its own historical period and as a living art form.
Course requirements: The requirements for this course are:
1. Regular response papers (30%)
2. A brief paper on the controversy over the presence of women in the Theater of Dionysus; due by 2/17. (10%)
3. Research or creative project on some aspect of ancient Greek drama, its production, or its reception in the modern world: proposal of 1-2 pages due in Week 7, finished paper, 5-6 pages) due at last class meeting (20%) Any student choosing the creative project option must notify me by week seven. If you are interested in some other creative option, please discuss it with me ASAP. The creative project can be (but is not limited to):
a. Performance: if at last 6 students express serious interest, they can work together with me on a performance of a Greek drama (comedy or tragedy). This performance must adhere to the conventions of ancient performance (though masks are not required).
b. Writing: following the format of a typical Greek tragedy, chose a mythological subject and draft the outline of a "lost" drama and compose an extended scene in its entirety. See Assignments in Blackboard.
4. Brief report on the Temple University Theater production of The Seven; due by 3/3 (10%)
5. Final exam; Thursday 5/7, 9-11 A.M. (20%)
6. Attendance and participation. (10%) You must notify me in advance if you will miss class; leave a message with voicemail or email me. Repeated unexcused absences will result in automatic failure. Don't be shy about participating, especially when it comes to asking questions. There is only stupidity in not taking steps to overcome misunderstanding.
The Seven: February 5-22. Part of the class will be built around Temple’s production of The Seven, a hip-hop version of Aeschylus’ Seven Against Thebes. Students are required to attend a performance and write a report on their experience. At some point during February, the director Lee Richardson will visit our class to discuss the production.
Required reading: We will use a series of texts in this class. These have been chosen carefully with an eye to keeping costs reasonable, so you are required to own these texts and to bring your copy of the book under discussion to class. You will also receive occasional handouts of selected texts. Some scholarship will be linked online at Blackboard.
Additional materials at Blackboard both in MS Word and html (under Course Documents):
Disability policy: Any student who has a need for accommodation based on the impact of a disability should contact the instructor privately to discuss the specific situation as soon as possible. Contact Disability Resources and Services at 215-204-1280 or 100 Ritter Annex to coordinate reasonable accommodations for students with documented disabilities.
Academic Conduct: Temple University has adopted standards on academic conduct, and all students are expected to comply fully with those standards, including with reference to the important issue of plagiarism. All students should, in all assignments, fully and unambiguously cite sources from which they are drawing important ideas and/or sizable quotations (for example, more than eight consecutive words or more than 50% of a given sentence or paragraph). Failure to do so constitutes plagiarism, which is a serious act of academic misconduct and will result in a failing grade for the course and notification of the infraction to the Dean of Students. Similarly, cheating during exams, copying written assignments from other students, or providing answers to others during exams are considered acts of academic misconduct. If you are unfamiliar with policies about plagiarism or other types of academic misconduct, you may wish to consult the on-line guide to "Quoting, Paraphrasing, and Acknowledging Sources," available at the Temple Writing Center: http://www.temple.edu/writingctr/student_resources/student_resources.htm
If you still have remaining doubts or specific questions, raise them directly with the instructor.
Temple University policy on the freedom to teach and learn: Freedom to teach and freedom to learn are inseparable facets of academic freedom. The University has adopted a policy on Student and Faculty Academic Rights and Responsibilities (Policy#03.70.02) that can be accessed through the following link: http://policies.temple.edu/getdoc.asp?policy_no=03.70.02.
Weekly Assignments
Important: The rhythm of your week should be to read a whole play for Tuesday, taking notes of what is confusing or interesting, and then reread for Thursday. The regular response papers will be designed to focus your reading and prepare for in-class discussions.
(Jan 20-22) Week 1 Tues: Introduction to Greek drama and theaters: a show for Dionysus
Required web readings to be completed by Thursday (next Tuesday at latest):
1.Thomas Martin, "Athenian Religious and Cultural Life in the Golden Age," Focus on the paragraphs on tragedy. http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text.jsp?doc=Perseus:text:1999.04.0009:chapter=10
2. Introduction to Greek Stagecraft (from Didaskalia) http://didaskalia.open.ac.uk/StudyArea/greekstagecraft.html
3. NY Times article on modern stagings: http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9B0DE4D9143BF932A35750C0A961948260&sec=&spon=&pagewanted=all
Recommended reading for the first three or four weeks (in BB, under External Links)
Begin for Thursday, Euripides: Bacchae
(Jan 27-29) Week 2 Euripides: Bacchae; Aristotle’s Poetics
topics: division of parts among three actors; staging; textual problems; religion and tragedy; Dionysus and Dionysia; Aristotle and Greek tragedy
(Feb 3-5) Week 3 Sophocles: Ajax
topics: staging debates with masks; where is Athena?; suicides on stage? religion and tragedy; drama and hero cult; modern productions
(Feb 10-12) Week 4 Aeschylus' Oresteia: Agamemnon
topics: when does Clytemnestra enter? what is on stage? gender conflict and drama; modern productions, including Peter Hall's Oresteia
(Feb 17-19) Week 5 Agamemnon; Libation Bearers
Discussion of whether the murder of Clytemnestra can be staged with three actors Paper on women in theater due Tuesday
Also: Discussion of the politics of Greek tragedy. Read Griffin and at least one of Goldhill and Seaford (in BB under Course Documents).
(Feb 24-26) Week 6 Libation Bearers; Eumenides
Discussions of staging the trial vote and how the three actors are distributed across all three plays
(March 3-5) Week 7: The Great Unraveling 1: Gender, Rhetoric and the Other
Euripides’ Medea Th. Paper proposal due
(March 17-19) Week 8: Aristophanes' Lysistrata
Recommended readings in BB under External Links:
(March 24-26) Week 9: The Great Unraveling 2: The Crisis of the Generations
Euripides' Hippolytus (Staging: two choruses? where is Phaedra standing?)
(March 31) Week 10: Aristophanes' Clouds; read also Plato's Apology of Socrates on BB
The staging of Greek comedy No class Thursday
(April 7-9) Week 11: Heracles on Stage I (man, superman, god): Sophocles' Trachiniae and Euripides' Heracles
(April 14-16) Week 12: Heracles on Stage II (man, superman, god, buffoon): Euripides' Heracles and Aristophanes' Birds (video of Aquila production at Temple)
(April 21-23) Week 13: Heracles on Stage III (war, drama and civic (dis)unity): Sophocles' Philoctetes
BB readings from Thucydides on the oligarchic coup
(April 28-30) Week 14: Another show for Dionysus: Aristophanes' Frogs
(video of Aquila production as 1950s musical, with Dionysus as Elvis)
Topics: comedy, the function of drama, and the end of Athens. Comparison with Sondheim's Frogs, especially its 2004 New York production
Final Exam Thursday 5/7, 9-11 A.M.
Select Bibliography