SKEPSIS Throughout the tragedies, some figures emerge who summarise dynamically and in an unprecedented manner the distress and the struggles of man, his delusions and successes, his overwhelming victories and his devastating defeats. Those figures, no matter how intimately linked they are to their time, they however manage to survive their time and to acquire an eternal value, just because the poetic capacities of their author manage to seaze through the ephemeral and fleeting elements, the everlasting and permanent ones which characterise the human kind. Tragedy begins where ends the plot of the myth, where breaks the bloody circular flow and turns into an endless sraight line heading to infinity. Knowledge and responsibility transform the mythical being into tragic, that is free, as his fate is not decided by the divine forces but purely by himself. Decisive factors for this transformation are the education, the scientific knowledge, the social life as well as the State with its rules; in other words everything that constitutes that kind of knowledge which gives the right dimensions to the power of gods and, consequently, prompts the responsibility of the human being. Faith is succeeded by conviction; hyvris (the abuse) is replaced by power. Tragedy moves on the borderline between order and transgression and searching for a key to the problem, the need, the fate, the logos (the faculty of speech), the measurable but also the indeterminable, the conflict and the love solicit their place in the resolution of a world which both establishes and eliminates standards.
THE TRAGIC PLAYS The tragic heroes are descended from illustrious families and constitute model-figures for the spectators. Throughout the plot, they are called to make decisions and act in a certain direction. Their choices, determined by their character (ethos) and their ideology (dianoia), sometimes led them to the right path, other times to the wrong one. The tragic hero finds himself in a terrible predicament, owing to conflicts with the divine forces ruling the world, to sins originating from former generations, to the inability of determining the true identity of others and of himself, to his difficulty to interpret the circumstances governing the world in which he lives. During the development of the plot, the tragic figure is being led to the discovery of the true dimension of things through conflicts, interchange of joy and sorrow and unexpected situations. The revelation of the truth brings with it the solution of the drama, the redemption or the final fall of the tragic hero. The ventures of the tragic heroes result in implicating sentimentally the spectators. The passions, the incredible ventures, the contrition or the redemption of the heroes generate distress, fear, sympathy or relief among the spectators.
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Tragedies usually drew on the old mythology. Although the spectators
were already familiar with the core of the plot, they attended the
performances with great interest, enchanted by the different ways in
which each playwright worked on and interpreted the mythical episodes.
The tragedies served as a means for the poets to express the quests of
their time, dealing with the great issues preocuppying their
fellow-citizens. Writers were not so much interested in sketching the
human character as they were in the actions of the tragic heroes and the
choices they made, under given circumstances.
