Democracy & Greek Drama

Greek theater had a huge affect on Greek democracy and vice versa

Opinions

PLATO

Musical innovation is full of danger to the State, for when modes of music change, the laws of the State always change with them.”
― Plato, Plato's Republic: The Theatre of the Mind

Peter Burian

"The Greek theater’s democratic character is not so much a matter of taking ideological positions that are certifiably democratic, but of participating in a culture of democratic discourse and expanding it to make heard the voices of women, foreigners, and slaves who had no place in the political institutions of the polis — speech mediated of course by the fact that male citizens acted all the parts."

Richard Halpern

Plato's interlocking critiques of democracy and drama formalized a general intuition that theatre played a central role in the political life of the democratic city.

The Theatre of Dionysus, roughly comparable in structure and capacity to the Athenian ekklesia or Assembly, even served on occasion as an alternate site for democratic debate. Present – Day Scholars largely concur in the view that theatre helped to educate the Demos in the deliberative reason, critical judgment, and civic values that undergirded political life

IN THE PLAY

ANTIGONE

IN ANTIGONE

• LAWS OF GOD OVER LAWS OF STATE!
• The place of women
• The idea of being just

THE ODYSSEY

GREEK CITIZENSHIP

• Barbarianism vs Citizens
• Odysseus as the ideal citizen

WORKS CITED

Plato, Plato's Republic: The Theatre of the Mind

• Plato, Plato's Republic: The Theatre of the Mind
• Burian, Peter. 5 Questions on Theater’s Role in Democracy
• Halpern, Richard. Theater and Democratic Thought: Aerendt to Rancière