1. Warm-up 10/19/12
If you could know anything about your future, what would it be? Why?
If you could choose to know your entire future, would you want to?
Do you believe people’s futures are mapped out for them and that there is nothing they can do to change them?

2. Warm-up 10/19
It is often said that “the truth will set you free.” Do you agree or disagree with this statement? Why?
Are there times that a person is better off not knowing the truth about something? Explain.
When is a time you found out a truth about something you wish you hadn’t known?

3. Greek Theater

4. Greek Drama Tragedy Serious drama Tragic hero (main character)
Noble and dignified
Tries to achieve something
Ultimately defeated
Tragic flaw
Weakness of the main character

5. The Theater Amphitheater Orchestra
a level area of oval or circular shape surrounded by rising ground.
Orchestra
Rounded performance area where the chorus sings and dances

6. The Theater

7. The Theater

8. The Masks Suggest character types (king, prophet, woman, etc.)
Made of linen, wood, or leather.
marble or stone face used as a mold for mask
Human or animal hair was also used
Eyes fully drawn, but in the place of the pupil of the eye was a small hole so that the actor could see.

9. Theater Masks

10. Conventions of Greek Theater
Prologue
Opening scene
Exodus
Concluding scene
Catharsis
“cleansing” of emotions; like a “good cry”
Audience members empathize with characters

11. Conventions of Greek Theater
Prior knowledge of story
Audience better appreciates the tragedy
Understands irony
No violence on stage

12. Conventions of Greek Theater
Chorus
Onlookers who comment on and interpret the actions of the play
Choragos (chorus leader)
Spokesman for the chorus
Often interacts with other characters

13. Conventions of Greek Theater
Parodos
An ode sung by the chorus at their entrance
Ode
A poem meant to be sung

14. The Oedipus Cycle
Oedipus Rex
Oedipus at Colonus
Antigone

15. Oedipus Rex King Laius and Queen Jocasta of Thebes have a child
Oracle says that child will “kill his father and marry his mother”
Jocasta sends baby Oedipus with a shepherd to be killed at Mt. Cithaeron
Meanwhile…

16. Oedipus Rex
King Labdacus and Queen Merope of Corinth adopt a baby and name him “Oedipus” –swollen ankles
As the child grows, he learns from the Oracle: “You will kill your father and marry your mother”
Oedipus makes haste to leave Corinth
On the road…

17. Oedipus Rex
King Laius and his entourage are attacked by a traveler; Laius dies
Oedipus encounters the Sphinx and solves her riddle
Oedipus becomes King of Thebes—the wife of the widow Jocasta
Thebes suffers from a plague
The story unfolds…

18. Oedipus Rex Oedipus—2nd King of Thebes Jocasta—Queen of Thebes
Creon—Jocasta’s brother
Teiresias—the blind prophet

19. Vocab Scene 1 and Ode 1 Edict Lustration Begetting Pestilence
Contagion
Prudent
Insolence
Decrepit
Mummery
Regicide