1. Do Now—Answer in your Writer’s Notebook:
What plays have you seen or read? What do you like and dislike about theater?

2. Classical Greek Drama Theater was more than entertainment
Part of religion
Displayed loyalty to the city-state
Honored local heroes
Major social event
Place of competition
Philosophy was discussed

3. Theater of Dionysus, Athens
Up to 15,000 spectators, sitting up to 55 yards away.

4. At the Theater Only men allowed to perform
Wore masks, but Carried few props
Violence always occurred off stage
Typically, messengers would appear after the event to describe what happened
Contained a chorus, that represented the commoners

5. The Golden Age Festival of Dionysus: Drama Competition
Aeschelus, Sophocles, Euripides, and Aristophanes
Wrote in verse (poetry)
Re-Wrote history

6. Tragedy and Comedy Comedy Tragedy Ridiculed Politicians
The one comedic playwright ended in legal trouble for this
Fall of a great man
Hero should not be all good or all bad
Falls due to their own hamartia

7. Sophocles Born in 5th Century BC to Wealthy Family Wrote 120 plays
24 Won the first prize at Dionysus Competition
Only 7 plays remain intact
Invented painted scenery & “deus ex machina”
Believed in self-knowledge

8. Oedipus answered this. Can you?
What walks on four legs in the morning, on two at noon, and on three in the evening?
Man

9. Watching the Play Remember our Characterization
Direct & Indirect
Determine how characters are related

10. Exit Slip
How do the lines of the chorus differ from other speeches in the play?
How does Sophocles involve the chorus in the play’s action?

11. Do Now: Can you answer these Riddles?
I can run but never walk I have a mouth but never talk I have a bed but never sleep I have a head but never weep. What am I?
(Answer: A river.)
This thing all things devours: Birds, beasts, trees, flowers; Gnaws iron, bites steel; Grinds hard stones to meal; Slays king, ruins town, And beats high mountain down. What is this thing?
(Answer: Time.)

12. Today’s Look Fors: Tragic Flaw Symbols Hubris Light and Dark
Blindness and Sight

13. Exit Slip Take a stab at what the symbols might represent Remember:
Symbols can represent themselves literally (e.g. Tiresias is actually blind)
And they have a deeper meaning, too.

14. Do Now
A cloud was my mother, the wind is my father, my son is the cool stream, and my daughter is the fruit of the land. A rainbow is my bed, the earth my final resting place, and I'm the torment of man. What am I?
(Answer: Rain.)

15. Irony Verbal irony: IS saying the opposite of what one means
“I have bad news for you! You got an A!”
Wow! That shirt looks really good on you. (not)

16. Irony Situational Dramatic
Discrepancy between what the speaker says and what the poem means
i.e. We know the meaning, but the speaker is confused.
It illuminates character
Allows the author to indirectly comment on the nature of the person speaking
Discrepancy between the actual circumstances and what is expected to occur
If it snows on Memorial Day, right after the beaches open, it is ironic.
We expected Okonkwo to not kill Ikemefuna because he loved him.
The commissioner said he came to “civilize” the Ibo.

17. Play Tracker
As we watch the end of the play, keep your eye out for irony.
Does the irony help you understand the message of the play?

18. Literary Analysis
Write an analytical essay about how Sophocles uses symbol or irony to highlight Oedipus’s tragic flaw (harmartia).
Possible thesis:
In Oedipus Rex, Sophocles uses (the symbols of _____ OR _______ irony) to show the king’s tragic flaw.

19. Essay due in Turnitin.com by Sunday at midnight