Rahpooye Honar/Performing Arts

Rahpooye Honar/Performing Arts

Religious and Ritualistic Aspects of Greek Tragedy: The Importance of Initial Texts and Contexts

Document Type : Original Article

Authors
1 Assistant Professor, Department of Dramatic Literature, Faculty of Arts, Damghan University, Damghan, Iran
2 Assistant Professor, Art Research Institute, Academy of Arts, Tehran, Iran.
Abstract
In addition to universal aspects, Greek tragedies have other meaningful aspects in their cultural context at the time and place they were created and staged for their direct audience, that is, the people of ancient Athens. Greek tragedies' ritual and religious background have been very important in producing the meanings of the works. In this paper, by examining the text of some plays as well as the ancient rites that were connected with their performance, we’ve tried to reconstruct these contexts and foundations. Thus, what we found is that Greek tragedies have been a place to explore religious and theological questions and doubts, and they even provide answers to these questions. Antigone by Sophocles raises a fundamental question about the nature and function of the religion of the polis, and the Orestes by Euripides proposes the religious concept of dual agency as well as another fundamental question about the conflict between the laws of God and the law of men. We have also tried to examine the ritual and religious elements in The Suppliants by Aeschylus to show that ancient religions and rituals play a prominent role in the text of the tragedies and we found that Euripides' play raises new fundamental questions about the essence and concept of sin and why to obey the command of the gods.
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  • Receive Date 11 August 2024
  • Revise Date 03 October 2024
  • Accept Date 15 October 2024