The fathers of tragedy are Aeschylus, Sophocles and Euripides.

Aeschylus, Sophocles and Euripides - these are the three great titans, on whose incomparable creativity the stormy poetry of Her Majesty Tragedy boils, full of unspeakable passions. The most vital intricacies of human destinies fight in an endless battle for unattainable happiness and, dying, do not know the joy of victory. But out of compassion for the heroes, a bright flower of purification is born - and its name is Catharsis.

The first choir song from Sophocles' Antigone became a great hymn to the glory of Great Humanity. The hymn states:

There are many wonderful forces in nature,
But there is no stronger person.
He's under the blizzard's rebellious howl
Boldly goes beyond the sea.
Honored among the goddesses, the Earth,
The ever-abundant mother, he tires.

Time has left us too little information about the lives of the great tragedians. Too much of it divides us, and too many tragedies that swept over the earth swept away the stories of their destinies from people’s memories. But only crumbs remained of the enormous poetic heritage. But they have no price... They are priceless... They are eternal...

The very concept of “tragedy,” which carries within itself all the power of fatal events in a person’s fate, his collision with a world filled with an intense struggle of characters and passions bursting into the space of being, translated from Greek simply means “goat song.” Agree, my dear reader, a somewhat strange feeling is born in the soul that does not allow one to come to terms with this unfair combination. Nevertheless, this is so. Where did the “goat song” come from? There is an assumption that the tragedy was born from the songs of satyrs who performed on stage in goat costumes. This explanation, coming from the external appearance of the performers, and not from the internal content of the work being performed, seems somewhat superficial. After all, satyrs should perform plays with a satirical content, and not a tragic one.

Perhaps the “goat song” is the suffering song of those very scapegoats on whom people laid all their sins and released them into the vast distances, so that they would carry these sins away from their homes. The scapegoats told endless distances about the overwhelming burden they had to carry on their innocent shoulders. And it was this story of theirs that became the story of the tragedy of human existence... Perhaps everything was exactly like that? Who knows…

We have already become acquainted with some of the tragedies of Aeschylus and Sophocles, and they helped us to feel the very spirit of those times, to feel the aroma of living spaces unknown to us.

Aeschylus was a direct participant in wars and knew firsthand what it meant to look death in the eye and be frozen by its chilling gaze. Perhaps it was this meeting that carved into the soul of the tragedian one of the main mottos of his poetry:

To those who are overwhelmed by pride,
Who is full of arrogance, who brings good to the house,
Forgetting about every measure, he carries,
All the more terrible are Ares, the patron of vengeance.
We don't need countless riches -
Needs would not be known and saved from troubles
Modest income, peace of mind.
No abundance
A mortal cannot pay off
If the truth is great
Tramples underfoot.

The poet carefully peers into all manifestations of human existence and decides for himself:

I have to think. To the deepest
Depths of thought let the diver
A keen, sober and calm gaze will penetrate.

Aeschylus understands:

A person cannot live without guilt,
It is not possible to walk on earth without sin,
And from grief, from troubles
No one can hide forever.

For the “father of tragedy,” the gods are the main arbiters of human destinies, and fate is omnipotent and invincible. When a defenseless mortal is attacked

An irresistible stream of boundless troubles,
Then into the raging sea of ​​terrible rock
He gets thrown...

And then he will no longer find a quiet and cozy haven for himself anywhere. If luck turns its face towards him, then that luck is “a gift from the gods.”

Aeschylus was the first poet who began to look closely at the whole cluster of terrible crimes that is hidden in the struggle of greedy heirs for the coveted inheritance. And the richer the family, the more terrible the fight. In a wealthy home, blood relatives have only hatred in common with each other. And there is no need to talk about the royal one. Here

Divides his father's inheritance
Merciless iron.
And everyone will receive land
How much is needed for the grave -
Instead of the expanse of royal lands.

And only when the blood of half-brothers mixes with the damp earth, “the fury of mutual murder subsides and the walls of the home are crowned with lush flowers of sadness,” where the only loud cry is heard, in which

The goddesses curse rings, rejoicing.
It's finished! The ill-fated family collapsed.
The goddess of death calmed down.

Following Aeschylus, a long line of poets and prose writers will develop this topic, which has been vital for all times.

The father of tragedy, Sophocles, was born in 496 BC. He was seven years younger than Aeschylus and 24 years older than Euripides. This is what ancient testimonies tell about him: Glorious, he became famous for his life and poetry, received an excellent upbringing, lived in prosperity, distinguished himself both in government and in embassies. So great was the charm of his character that everyone loved him everywhere. He won 12 victories, often took second place, but never third. After the naval battle of Salomina, when the Athenians celebrated their victory, Sophocles, naked, anointed with oils, with a lyre in his hands, led the choir.

The name of the divine Sophocles, a most learned man, was added to the names of philosophers when, after a heavy golden cup was stolen from the temple of Hercules, he saw in a dream God telling him who had done it. He didn't pay any attention to it at first. But when the dream began to repeat itself, Sophocles went to the Areopagus and reported about it: the Ariopagites ordered the arrest of the one whom Sophocles pointed out. During interrogation, the arrested man confessed and returned the cup. After everything happened, the dream was called the appearance of Hercules the Announcer.

Once upon a time, a famous actor was involved in Sophocles' tragedy "Electra", surpassing everyone else in the purity of his voice and the beauty of his movements. His name, they say, was Paul. He skillfully and with dignity played the tragedies of famous poets. It so happened that this Paul lost his beloved son. When, by all accounts, he had grieved long enough over the death of his son, Paul returned to his art. According to his role, he was supposed to carry in his hands an urn with the supposed ashes of Orestes. This scene is designed in such a way that Electra, carrying the remains of her brother, mourns him and grieves over his imaginary death. And Paul, dressed in Electra’s mourning attire, took his son’s ashes and urn from his son’s grave and, squeezing him in his arms as if they were the remains of Orestes, filled everything around with not feigned, acting, but real sobs and lamentations. So when the play seemed to be going on, genuine sorrow was presented.

Euripides corresponded with Sophocles and once sent him this letter in connection with a nearly shipwreck:

“The news has reached Athens, Sophocles, about the misfortune that happened to you during the voyage to Chios; the whole city reached the point where enemies grieved no less than friends. I am convinced that only thanks to divine guidance it could have happened that in such a great misfortune you were saved, and you did not lose any of your relatives and servants who accompanied you. As for the trouble with your dramas, you will not find anyone in Hellas who would not consider it terrible; but since you survived, it can be easily corrected. See that you come back as soon as possible, safe and sound, and if now during the voyage you feel bad from seasickness or the cold is bothering you, breaking your body, or it seems that it will bother you, return calmly immediately. At home, know that everything is in order, and everything that you punished has been fulfilled.”

This is what ancient evidence tells us about the life of Sophocles.

Of his enormous artistic heritage, only seven tragedies remain - an insignificant part... But what!... We know nothing about the rest of the works of the genius, but we know that he never in his life had the opportunity to experience the cooling of the Athenian public, either as an author or as a performer of the main roles in their tragedies. He was equally able to charm the audience with his skill in playing the cithara and the grace with which he played the ball. Truly, the motto of his life could be his own lines:

O thrill of joy! I am inspired, I rejoice!
And if the joy of life
He who lost is not alive for me:
I can hardly call him alive.
Save up wealth for yourself if you want
Live like a king, but if there is no happiness -
I won't give up even a shadow of smoke
For all this, happily comparing.

Sophocles' jubilant, victorious stride through life was not to everyone's liking. One day it came to the point that the ill-fated passion for victory overcame another genius - Aeschylus. When Sophocles won a brilliant victory at the festival of Dionysus, dejected, saddened, and consumed by envy, Aeschylus was forced to retire away from Athens - to Sicily.

“In the terrible years for Athens, when war and epidemic broke through the seemingly strong defensive walls, Sophocles began work on the tragedy “Oedipus Rex,” the main theme of which was the theme of the inevitability of fate, strict divine predestination, hanging like a thundercloud over the one who tried with all his might resist this Oedipus - a hostage of the Moira goddesses of fate, who have woven a web that is too inhuman for him. After all, “if God begins to persecute, and the strongest will not be saved. Human laughter and tears are in the will of the highest,” the poet warns. And it seems that the Athenian tragedy created for his soul that necessary background of hopelessness that the tragedy of King Oedipus breathes.

Independence in their decisions and willingness to take responsibility for their actions distinguishes the courageous heroes of Sophocles. To live beautifully or not to live at all - this is the moral message of a noble nature. Intolerance towards other people's opinions, irreconcilability towards enemies and towards oneself, indomitability in achieving goals - these are the properties inherent in all true tragic heroes of Sophocles. And if in Euripides’ “Electra” the brother and sister feel lost and crushed after taking revenge, then there is nothing similar in Sophocles, because matricide is dictated by her betrayal of her husband, Electra’s father, and is sanctioned by Apollo himself, therefore, carried out without the slightest hesitation.

As a rule, the situation itself in which the heroes are placed is unique. Any girl sentenced to death will mourn her failed calling in life, but not every girl will agree, on pain of death, to violate the king’s ban. Any king, having learned about the danger threatening the state, will take measures to prevent it, but not every king should turn out to be the very culprit he is looking for. Any woman, wanting to regain her husband’s love, can resort to a life-saving potion, but it is by no means necessary that this potion turn out to be a deadly poison. Any epic hero will feel his dishonor hard, but not everyone can be guilty of having plunged himself into this shame due to the intervention of a deity. In other words, Sophocles is able to enrich each plot borrowed from myths with such “details” that unusually expand the possibilities for creating an unusual situation and for demonstrating in it all the various traits in the character of the hero.

Sophocles, who knew how to weave the extraordinary destinies of people in his tragedies, turned out to be not so perspicacious in everyday life. At one time, citizens entrusted him with the important post of strategist and made a mistake, by the way, a very common one. The rich imagination and subtle intuition necessary for a poet are more likely to hinder a politician, who needs cruelty and speed in decision-making. Moreover, a military leader should have these qualities. An intelligent and creative person, when faced with a problem, sees too many ways to resolve it and an endless chain of consequences of each step; he hesitates, remains indecisive, while the situation requires immediate action.” (Kravchuk)

If Sophocles turned out to be not much of a strategist, then there is no doubt about the wisdom of his sayings. Therefore, my dear reader, let me present to you some of the poetic masterpieces of an incomparable master:

Your table is magnificent and your life is luxurious, -
And I have only one food: a free spirit! (Sophocles)

To bright souls
Shame is not nice, their honor lies in good deeds. (Sophocles)

Experience teaches you a lot. None of the people
Don't expect to become a prophet without experience. (Sophocles)

Saved by God, do not anger the gods. (Sophocles)

A person is right - so he can be proud. (Sophocles)

In trouble, the most reliable
Not the one who is powerful and broad-shouldered -
Only the mind prevails in life. (Sophocles)

To work is to multiply labor by labor. (Sophocles)

Not in words, but in their actions
We put the glory on our lives. (Sophocles)

To live without realizing troubles is what is sweet. (Sophocles)

Who asks for what is lawful,
You don't have to ask for a long time. (Sophocles)

When your persistent request
They don’t do it, they don’t want to help,
And suddenly then, when the desire passed,
They will do everything - what good is that?
Then you won’t even have mercy. (Sophocles)

All people are mistaken sometimes,
But who makes a mistake, if he is not flighty?
And not unhappy from birth, in trouble,
Leaving persistence will fix everything;
A stubborn person will be called insane. (Sophocles)

Perhaps not loving the living
The dead will be regretted in difficult times.
A fool has happiness - he doesn’t keep it,
And if he loses happiness, he will appreciate it so much. (Sophocles)

Empty, arrogant people
The gods plunge into the abyss of grave disasters. (Sophocles)

You are not wise if you are beyond the path of reason
You find taste in stubborn conceit. (Sophocles)

Look into yourself, contemplate your torment,
Knowing that you yourself are the culprit of torment, -
This is true suffering. (Sophocles)

I recently realized
That we should hate the enemy,
But to know that tomorrow we can love;
And be a support for a friend, but remember
That he could be an enemy tomorrow.
Yes, the harbor of friendship is often unreliable... (Sophocles)

If someone takes revenge for an insult to the offender,
Fate never punishes the avenger.
If you answer the insidious one with deceit,
Sorrow, and not good for you as a reward. (Sophocles)

Works in the name of loved ones
It should not be considered work. (Sophocles)

What does mother mean? Children insult us
And we don’t have the strength to hate them. (Sophocles)

Husband must
Cherish the memory of the joys of love.
A feeling of gratitude will be born in us
From a feeling of gratitude, - husband,
He who has forgotten the tenderness of caresses is ungrateful. (Sophocles)

Because of empty rumors
You shouldn't blame your friends in vain. (Sophocles)

To reject a devoted friend means
Lose the most precious thing in life. (Sophocles)

Contrary to the truth - and bad ones in vain
Consider the good as friends and enemies.
He who drives out a faithful friend will live
I cut off the color of my favorite one. (Sophocles)

And finally...

Everything in life is impermanent:
Stars, troubles and wealth.
Unsustainable happiness
Suddenly disappeared
A moment - and joy returned,
And behind it - sadness again.
But if the way out is indicated,
Believe me; Any misfortune can become a blessing. (Sophocles)

Information has reached us that Sophocles had a son, Jophon, with whom, in all likelihood, he first developed a wonderful relationship, because they were united not only by their own blood, but also by a love of art. Jophon wrote many plays together with his father and staged fifty of them. But the son forgot the wise instruction of his father:

The small one holds on if the great one is with him,
And the great one - if the little one stands next to him...
But it is in vain to instill such thoughts
For those who are born with a poor mind.

When Sophocles grew old, a lawsuit arose between him and his son. The son accused his father of losing his mind and wasting his children’s inheritance with all his might. To which Sophocles replied:

Y'all are shooting at me
Like an arrow at the target; and even in reproaches
I am not forgotten by you; his relatives
I have been appreciated and sold out for a long time.

Perhaps there was some truth in this lawsuit, because the poet’s indifference to beautiful hetaeras was no secret to anyone. Sophocles was imbued with especially tender and reverent love for the incomparable Archippe, with whom he lived in perfect harmony until a very old age, which gave the opportunity for restless gossips to scratch their tongues to their hearts' content, but did not tame the love of the poet and hetaera, which Sophocles reinforced with concern for his beloved, making her his heir your condition.

Here is what ancient evidence tells about this story: “Sophocles wrote tragedies until he was very old. When the son demanded that the judges remove him as if he were insane from owning household property. After all, according to customs, it is customary to prohibit parents from managing the household if they manage it poorly. Then the old man said: “If I am Sophocles, then I am not mad; if he is mad, then not Sophocles” and recited to the judges the essay that he was holding in his hand and had just written - “Oedipus at Colonus” - and asked whether such an essay could really belong to a madman who possesses the highest gift in the poetic art - the ability portray character or passion. After he finished reading, by decision of the judges he was released from the charge. His poems aroused such admiration that he was escorted out of court, as if from a theater, with applause and enthusiastic reviews. All the judges stood before such a poet, brought him the highest praise for his wit in defense, magnificence in tragedy, and left no sooner than accusing the accuser himself of feeble-mindedness.

Sophocles died at the age of ninety in the following way: after the grape harvest, they sent him a bunch. He took an unripe berry into his mouth, choked on it, suffocated and died. According to other evidence: while reading Antigone aloud, Sophocles came across a long phrase at the end that was not marked in the middle with a stop sign, overexerted his voice and with it gave up the ghost. Others report that after the performance of the drama, declared the winner, he died of joy.

Joking lines were written about the reasons for the passing of great people:

Having eaten a raw centipede, Diogenes died immediately.
Sophocles breathed his last after choking on grapes.
Dogs killed Euripides in the distant lands of Thrace.
God-like Homer was killed by severe hunger.

And solemn odes were created about the departure of the great:

Son of Sophil, you, O Sophocles, singer of round dances,
A small measure of earth took into its depths,
Curls of ivy from Acharn were completely wrapped around your head,
The muses of tragedy are the star, the pride of the Athenian land.
Dionysus himself was proud of your victory in the competition,
Your every word shines with eternal fire.
Quietly, spreading ivy, bend over the grave of Sophocles.
Quietly accept him into your canopy, cover him with lush greenery.
Roses, open buds, grapevine stems,
Wrap the flexible shoot around, beckoning with a ripe bunch.
May there be serenity on your grave, God-equal Sophocles,
Ivy curls flow forever around the light foot.
Let the bees, descendants of the oxen, irrigate forever
Your grave is like honey, Hymettian drops are pouring.
The first to erect altars to these deities was Sophocles, equal to God.
He also took precedence in the glory of tragic muses.
You spoke about sorrowful things with sweet speech,
Sophocles, you skillfully mixed honey with wormwood.

The childhood of another Father of tragedy, Euripides, was barefoot, and sometimes his hungry belly, rumbling gloomily, prevented him from sleeping sweetly on a bed of straw. His mother was not always able to successfully sell vegetables at the market, and then she had to eat those that had already rotted - they were not in demand among buyers. The young man Euripides was not in demand among the fair sex either, because he was not only ugly, but also had some physical defects. But he had one virtue - love of words!

Why,” he asked with inspiration, “
O mortals, we are to all other sciences
Trying to study so hard
And speech, the only queen of the world
Are we forgetting? This is who to serve
Everyone should, for an expensive fee
Bringing teachers together so that the secret of the word
Having learned, convinced - win!

But fate did not give him true victories during his lifetime and denied him the opportunity to soar high into the heavens in their joyful rapture. At poetry competitions, a laurel wreath was rarely placed on the head of Euripides. He never pandered to the wishes of the audience. To their demands to change some episodes, he answered with dignity that he had the custom of writing plays in order to teach the people, and not to learn from them.

To an insignificant boastful poet, who boasted in front of him that he, they say, writes a hundred poems a day, while Euripides is not able to create even three, making incredible efforts, the great poet replied: “The difference between us is that yours The plays will only last for three days, but mine will always come in handy.” And he turned out to be right.

Euripides was unable to find out what kind of glory came to him after passing through millennia. Death has greatly overtaken her. But the adversities that often visited the poet and sought to trample his rushing spirit sometimes suffered crushing defeats, because the poet’s life experience, rich in suffering, told him that

And life is a tornado
Like a hurricane in a field, it does not make noise forever:
The end comes to happiness and misfortune...
Life moves us constantly up and down,
And the brave is the one who does not lose faith
Among the most terrible disasters: only a coward
Loses vigor, seeing no way out.
Survive the illness and you will be healthy.
And if among the evil
Having embraced us, the happy wind again
Will it blow on us?

Then only the last fool will not catch its life-giving tight currents in his sails. Don’t miss the moment of luck and joy, reinforce it with the intoxicating currents of Bacchus. Otherwise you

Madman, so much power, so much sweetness
Opportunities to love, what game
Wine promises freedom... to dance
God calls us and takes away our memory
Past evils...

But evil is eternal, it goes away and returns again. It rages in life and on the darkened sheets of tragedies. In the tragedy “Hippolytus,” a chaste young man avoids female love and affection. He only likes free hunting in the company of the beautiful virgin Artemis. His stepmother Phaedra, who fell madly in love with her stepson Hippolytus, only needs his love. The world is not dear to her without this all-consuming love. But while passion has not yet completely exhausted her, Phaedra tries to hide her misfortune from those around her and especially from her understanding nurse. In vain... Finally she admits:

Woe, woe! For what, for what sins?
Where is my reason? Where is my goodness?
I was completely distraught. Noxious Demon
Defeated me. Woe is me, woe!
I wanted love, like a terrible wound
Transfer with dignity. At first I
I decided to remain silent and not reveal my torment.
After all, there is no trust in the language: the language is much
Just to calm someone else's soul,
And then you won’t end up in trouble yourself.

Unhappy Phaedra is tossing about, unable to find peace. There is no peace, but something completely different, and the old sympathetic nurse:

No, it’s better to be sick than to take care of the sick.
So only the body suffers, but here the soul too
There is no peace, and my hands hurt from work.
But human life is one torment
And the tedious work is incessant.

The confessions that escaped from the soul of Phaedra, defiled by the daring, shameful gift of Cypris-Aphrodite, this time requested, terrify the nurse:

O hateful world, where in love and honest
Powerless against vice. Not a goddess, no
Cyprus. If you can be higher than God.
You are above God, dirty mistress.

Cursing the goddess, the nanny tries to calm down Phaedra, who was fed her milk:

My long life has taught me a lot,
I realized that people love each other
It is necessary in moderation so that love is in the very heart
Didn’t penetrate so that I could of my own free will
Then loosen, then tighten again
Bonds of friendship. A heavy burden for that
It falls out who owes one for two
Grieve. And better, for me,
Always stick to the middle in everything,
Why, without knowing the limits, fall into excess.
Anyone who is reasonable agrees with me.

But is love subject to reason?.. No... Phaedra sees one, only one hopeless way out:

I tried
Overcome madness with a sober mind.
But it's all in vain. And finally despairing
In the victory over Cyprida, I considered that death,
Yes, death, don’t contradict me, is the best way.
And my feat will not remain unknown,
And I will leave shame and sin forever.
I know my illness, its infamy
I know well that I am like a woman
Branded with contempt. Oh damn
The scoundrel who is the first with her lover
My wife cheated! This is a disaster
It came from the top and destroyed the female sex.
After all, if the noble are amused by nasty things,
Either vile or even more so - that’s the law.
Those who are under the guise of modesty are despicable
Dissolutely impudent. O foam-born
Lady Cypris, how they look
In the eyes of husbands without fear? After all, the darkness of the night
And the walls, accomplices in crime,
They can give them away! That's why I call death,
My friends, I don’t want dishonor
Execute my husband, I don’t want my children
Shame forever. No, let them be proud
Free speech, with honor and dignity
They live in glorious Athens, not ashamed of their mother.
After all, the daredevil, having learned about the sin of his parents,
Like a vile slave, he will lower his gaze in humiliation.
Indeed, for those who are just in soul,
A clear conscience is more valuable than life itself.

The nurse tries with all her might to dissuade Phaedra:

Really, nothing too scary
It didn't happen. Yes, the goddess is angry
Yes, you do. So what? Many people love it.
And you are ready to die because of love
Doom yourself! After all, if all lovers
They deserved to die, who would want love?
Can't resist the rapids of Cyprus. From her - the whole world.
Its sowing is love, and we all, therefore,
From the grains of Aphrodite they were born.

Phaedra, exhausted by unbearable passion, almost loses consciousness, and the nurse, in order to avert trouble, begins to reproach and admonish the unfortunate woman:

After all, not under special
You walk like gods: everyone is like you, and you are like everyone else.
Or do you think there are no husbands in the world?
Turning a blind eye to their wives' infidelities?
Or are there no fathers who indulge their sons?
In their lust? This is old wisdom -
Do not bring unseemly deeds to light.
Why should we humans be overly strict?
After all, we use a ruler to rafter the roof
We don’t check. How are you, overwhelmed?
Will you escape your fate like waves of rock?
You are a man, and since the beginning is good
There is more evil in you, you are right all around.
Leave, dear child, your dark thoughts,
Down with pride! Yes, he sins with pride
One who wishes to better be the gods themselves.
Don't be afraid of love. This is the highest will.
Is the disease unbearable? Turn illness into good!
It’s better to be saved after sinning
Why give your life for pompous speeches.

The nurse, in order to save her favorite, convinces her to open up to Hippolytus. Phaedra takes the advice. He mercilessly rejects her. And then, in despair, the nurse runs to Hippolytus and once again tries to persuade him to quench Phaedra’s passion, that is, she offers to cover the honor of her own father with shame. Here Hippolytus first unleashes all his unbearable anger on the nurse:

How are you, oh wretch! You dared
To offer me, my son, a sacred bed
Dear father! Ears with spring water
I'll wash it now. After your vile words
I'm already unclean. What is it like for the fallen?

And then anger, a stormy wave, falls on the entire female race:

Why, O Zeus, should a woman be on the woe of mortals?
Have you given me a place in the sun? If the human race
You wanted to grow up, would you be without it?
Couldn't you get by with the treacherous class?
It would be better if we went to your sanctuaries
They took down copper, iron or gold
And they received, each according to their dignity
Your gifts, children's seeds to live
Freer, without women, in their own homes.
What now? We exhaust everything that the house is rich in,
To bring evil and grief into this house.
That wives are evil, there are many examples of this.
I pray that it doesn't happen
Overly smart women in my house.
After all, they are for deceit, for dashing deception
Cyprida pushes. And the brainless one
Poverty of mind will save you from this whim.
And I wouldn’t assign maids to my wives, no,
And the evil beasts are silent, so that the woman
In their chambers under such protection
And I couldn’t exchange a word with anyone.
Otherwise the maid will give her move immediately
Any bad idea of ​​the bad lady.

While Hippolytus curses the female race, Phaedra hides from all eyes and throws a noose around her neck. Her husband Theseus suffers mercilessly for his lost lover:

How much grief fell on my head,
How many troubles are looking at me from everywhere!
No words, no more urine. I'm dead. Died
The children were orphaned, the palace was empty.
You left, you left us forever,
Oh my dear wife. Better than you
There are no and never were women under the light of day
And under the stars of the night!

But Phaedra did not die silently, unanswered, she decided to justify herself to her family and to the world with a false letter in which she slandered Hippolytus, declaring that it was he who allegedly desecrated his father’s bed and thereby forced Phaedra to commit suicide. Having read the letter, Theseus changed his sorrowful speeches to angry ones:

The city is sad,
Hear, hear, people!
To take possession of my bed forcibly
Hippolytus tried, in front of Zeus.
I'll order him
Go into exile. Let one of two destinies
He will punish his son. Or, having heeded my plea,
In the palace of Hades, Poseidon punishes
He will be sent away, either by a stranger
The unfortunate outcast will drink the cup of troubles to the bottom.
O human race, how low you are capable of falling!
There is no limit to shamelessness, no boundaries
Doesn't know arrogance. If this continues
And with each generation it becomes more and more depraved,
The people will be worse and worse, the land will be new
In addition to the old one, the gods must create,
So that for all the villains and criminals
Enough space! Look, my son is standing there,
Flattered on his father's bed
And convicted of meanness by evidence
Dead! No, don't hide. Managed to sin -
Be able to look into my eyes without flinching.
Is it possible for God's chosen hero
An example of integrity and modesty
Should we count you? Well, now you're at liberty
Boast of Lenten food, sing hymns to Bacchus,
Extol Orpheus, breathe the dust of books -
You are no longer a mystery. I give everyone an order -
Saint beware. Their speech is kind,
But thoughts are shameful and deeds are black.
She is dead. But it won't save you.
On the contrary, this death is every evidence
Appears. No eloquence
Will not refute the sad dying lines.

The choir sums up the tragedy they experienced with a terrible conclusion for people:

There are no happy people among mortals. The one who was first
Becomes the last one. Everything is topsy-turvy.

And yet Ippolit tries to explain to his father:

Think about it, there is no young man in the world -
Even though you don’t believe me - more pure,
Than your son. I honor the gods - and this is the first
I see my merit. Only with honest ones
I enter into friendship with those who are their friends
Doesn't force you to act dishonestly
And he himself, to please his friends, will not do any harm.
I don't know how to see my comrades
Scolding is crafty. But most sinless
I am in this, my father, with which you now brand me:
I preserved my innocence, I preserved my purity.
Love is known only by hearsay
Yes, according to the pictures, although without any joy
I look at them: my soul is virgin.
But if you don't believe in my purity,
What could, tell me, seduce me?
Perhaps there was no woman in the world
More beautiful than this? Or maybe,
I tried to take possession of the royal heiress
For her inheritance? Gods, what nonsense!
You will say: power is sweet and chaste?
Oh no, not at all! You have to be crazy
To seek power and take the throne.
I want to be the first only in Hellenic games,
And in the state let it remain with me
Second place. Good comrades,
Prosperity, complete carelessness
Dearer to my soul than any power.

Theseus, deafened by grief, completely rejects such obvious arguments of his own son:

What eloquence! The nightingale sings!
He believes that with his equanimity
Will force the offended father to remain silent.

Then Ippolit makes an attack in his direction:

And I must admit, I marvel at your meekness.
After all, if we suddenly switched places, I would
Killed you on the spot. I wouldn't have gotten away with it
By expulsion he encroached upon my wife.

Theseus immediately finds an answer to his hated son:

You're right, I don't argue. Only you won't die like that
As he prescribed to himself: instant death
It is most gratifying for those who are punished by fate.
Oh no, expelled from home, a cup of bitterness
You will drink to the dregs, living in poverty in a foreign land.
This is the retribution for your guilt.

Hippolytus, perhaps, could still have been saved by the true truth if he had told it to Theseus, but the nobility of his soul did not allow him to open his lips. His wanderings were not long. The moment of Hippolyte’s farewell to life has come. He is mortally wounded. And then the goddess Artemis stands up for his honor, whom the young man unspeakably revered and with whom he surrendered only to the free wind and the hot hunt. She said:

Listen, Theseus,
How can you enjoy your shame?
You killed an innocent son.
Believing unproven, false words,
You, unfortunate one, have proven that you have intelligence
I'm confused. Where will you go from shame?
Will you sink underground?
Or will you fly like a winged bird to the clouds,
To live far from earthly sorrows?
For places in the circle of just people
From now on you are lost forever.
Now listen to how the disaster happened.
My story will not console you, it will only hurt you,
But then I appeared, so that with glory,
Your son ended his life justified and pure
And so that you learn about the passions of your wife
And the nobility of Phaedra. Amazed
The goad of the one who is more hateful than all gods
To us, eternally pure, as your son
My wife fell in love. Overcome passion with reason
She tried, but in the snares of the nurse
Died. Your son, having taken a vow of silence,
I learned a secret from the nanny. Honest young man
Didn't fall into temptation. But how did you not disgrace him?
He did not break his oath to honor the gods.
And Phaedra, fearing exposure,
She slandered her stepson treacherously
And she ruined it. Because you believed her.

Hippolytus, suffering mercilessly from his wounds, utters his last words:

Look, Zeus,
I feared the gods, revered the shrines,
I am the most modest of all, I lived the purest of all,
And now I’ll go underground, to Hades
And I will end my life. Piety's work
I carried in vain and in vain I had a reputation
Devout in the world.
Here we go again, here we go again
The pain took hold of me, the pain dug into me.
Ah, leave the sufferer!
May death come to me as deliverance,
Kill me, finish me off, I pray,
Cut into pieces with a double-edged sword,
Send me a good dream,
Give me peace by ending me.

Artemis, who appeared so late, tries to console both the deceived father and the dying son:

O unfortunate friend, you are yoked to the yoke of misfortune.
Your noble heart has ruined you.
But my love is with you.
The insidious Cypris planned this.
You did not honor her, you kept her clean.
The maiden songs will never cease forever
About Hippolytus, the rumor will live forever
About bitter Phaedra, about her love for you.
And you, son of the Elder Aegean, your child
You should hug him tighter and press him to your chest.
You destroyed him unwittingly. Mortal
It’s easy to make a mistake if God allows it.
My order to you, Ippolit, don’t be angry
To his father. You have fallen victim to fate.
Now goodbye. I shouldn't see death
And defile with the breath of the departing
Your heavenly face.

Euripides, an ardent misogynist, cursed the immortal Cypris in his tragedy, but forgave the mortal Phaedra. The poet placed Chastity on the podium. Hippolytus, a contemplator of nature who passionately reveres the virgin goddess Artemis and despises sensual love for a mortal woman, is the true hero in the imperfect world of gods and people. This is Euripides' passion.

Despite the fact that he curses the women he hates and, perhaps, thanks to this hatred, because the feeling of hatred and the feeling of love are the most acute experiences in the world - Euripides creates the most complex and most vivid images of the fair sex. Rich life observations allow the poet to present to the audience all the diversity of human characters, emotional impulses and violent passions. Unlike Sophocles, who shows people as they should be, Euripides strives to portray people as they are. He concluded the highest statement of justice in these lines:

Isn’t it a mistake to stigmatize people for their vices?..
If the gods are an example before people -
Who is to blame? Teachers. Perhaps…

But the meaning of the tragedy can be revealed in another way. “As in Medea, the action is driven by an internal struggle - only not between two passions, but between passions and reason. Phaedra cannot overcome her love with reason. But the meaning of the tragedy is deeper. Its main character is not the vicious Phaedra, but the innocent Hippolytus. Why is he dying? Perhaps Euripides wanted to show that the position of man in the world is generally tragic, because this world is structured without logic and meaning - it is ruled by the willfulness of the forces that the author clothed in the images of gods: Artemis, the chaste patroness of the chaste Hippolytus, and Aphrodite, his sensual opponent. Or perhaps Euripides, on the contrary, believed that harmony, a balance of forces reigns in the world, and those who violate it suffer, neglecting passion for the sake of reason, like Hippolytus, or not listening to reason in the blindness of passion, like Phaedra.” (O. Levinskaya)

One way or another, Euripides’ man is far from harmony. No wonder Aristotle called him “the most tragic of poets.”

In his tragedy “Electra,” Euripides reveals the full depth of the abyss of endless horror that falls on a person’s thirst for revenge.

I am surrounded by evil and torment, - Electra screams, -
Filled with grief.
Day and night, day and night I
I'm languishing - my cheeks are bleeding
Torn by a sharp fingernail
And my forehead is beaten
In honor of you, the king is my father...
Don't be sorry, don't be sorry.

What brought the poor girl into such despair? And the following happened: her royal mother kills her legitimate husband - the hero of the Trojan War, in order to fall freed into the hot embrace of her lover. Electra, who has lost her father, is expelled from the royal chambers and drags out a miserable, destitute existence in a poor shack. To the girls who invite her to have fun, Electra responds:

Oh, the soul is not torn, maidens,
From my chest to joy.
Gold necklaces
I don’t want to, and I kick
I am flexible among the maidens of Argive
I won’t be in a round dance anymore
Trample the native fields,
My dancing will be replaced by tears...
Look: where is the delicate curl?
You see - the peplos is all in rags
Is this the fate of the royal daughter,
The proud daughter of Atrid?

When Electra’s brother Orestes returns from distant lands, she tells him about everything that happened:

Murderer
With unwashed hands he grabbed
Father's rod - he rides in a chariot,
In which the king rode, and how proud he was!
No one dare water the royal graves.
Decorate with a myrtle branch, fire
The leader did not see the victim, but the grave
A tyrant, drunk with wine, tramples underfoot...

Orestes is horrified by what he heard and Electra convinces his brother to kill his mother’s insignificant lover. The feast of revenge begins.

And then the knife strikes
Opens the chest. And just above the heart
Orestes himself bowed attentively.
The knife also rose on tiptoe
Hit the Tsar in the scruff of the neck, and with a blow
It breaks his back. The enemy has collapsed
And he tossed about in agony, dying.
And so Orestes calls out: “Not a robber
He came to the feast: the king returned home...
I am your Orestes.

And he says to Electra:

Here you are - dead
And if you feed it to the beasts
Or scarecrows for birds, children of the ether,
If you want to nail it to a pole, he's ready for anything.
I agree - he is your slave, yesterday's tyrant.

And Electra, proudly standing over the corpse of her enemy, “unwound the whole ball of speeches and threw it in his face”:

Hear that you must still be alive
Was to listen. Damned, no guilt
Why did you leave us orphans?
Having fallen in love with the leader's wife, the enemy's walls
You didn’t see... And in arrogant stupidity
Murderer, thief and coward, did not dare to dream,
What will be the one caught in adultery?
An exemplary wife for you. If anyone
Having bowed on the bed of caresses by deception
Married, her husband will be
Imagine that she is a modest friend
His palace was decorated, call
He can't be happy. Oh you weren't
As happy with her as he might have dreamed.
The wickedness of the kisses did not wash away
From her soul, and your baseness
Among the ardent caresses she did not forget,
And you both tasted the bitter fruit,
She is yours, and you are her vices.
Oh, greatest of shames,
When in a family the wife is the head, and the husband
So pitiful, so humiliated that among the people
Children are not called by their patronymic.
Yes, a truly enviable marriage - from home
To get the rich and noble
A wife and become even more insignificant with her...
Aegisthus set his sights on gold:
He dreamed of adding weight to himself...

In Electra's soul, the feast of revenge flares up more and more. She tries to persuade Orestes, following his lover, to send their own mother, “beloved and hateful,” to the underworld. Orestes initially resists his sister's pressure. He does not want to embark on a “terrible journey to a terrible feat”, he does not want to put a “bitter burden” on his shoulders. But he does... And now “a mother is in the hands of her children - oh, a bitter lot.”

A bitter fate befalls the murderous son. In a feverish delirium, he keeps repeating and repeating:

Have you seen how bitter she is from under her clothes?
Did you take out your chest so that the killer’s knife would tremble?
Alas, alas! How do I like her
There, crawling on her knees, she tormented her heart!..
Tormented my heart!..
Tormented my heart!

Orestes, having lost his mind, rushes for a long time among the empty, bloody walls of the palace. But time passes and the mind returns to it. After all, justice is carried out not only by the will of Electra, but also by the will of the god Apollo himself.

If in his poetry Euripides lived by passions, penetrating his soul deeply into the inner world of a person overwhelmed by love, jealousy, joy, sadness, then in life, solitude was dearer to him. “The opening of the grotto, in which Euripides often basked, revealed to his gaze the silvery sea. Peace reigned here, disturbed only by the measured splash of waves on the coastal boulders and the plaintive cries of birds nesting on the rocks. The poet brought papyrus scrolls here. He loved books, and although he was not rich, he bought them wherever he could. In the grotto, Euripides read and created. Sometimes, in search of the appropriate word and rhyme, he peered into the sky for a long time or slowly followed with his gaze the boats and ships quietly gliding along the sparkling surface.

Euripides looked out over the sea from the hills of Salamis. Here he was born, here he farmed on a piece of land inherited from his father. He never had any special property, and later many laughed at the fact that the poet’s mother herself sold vegetables at the market.

The cleft in the rock attracted Euripides not only with the beautiful view opening from here, but also with its silence and distance from the noisy crowd. The love of solitude led to the fact that the poet was later accused of being unkind to people in general. Not true! He did not despise people, but the mob. He was disgusted by her loudness, base tastes, naive dexterity and ridiculous self-confidence.

What a fuss! - he complained, -
Call him blessed
Who does not bear evil in the present day?

But before quiet people who were pondering the secrets of the universe, Euripides joyfully opened his heart, “he sought expressions for his thoughts.” Leisurely conversations among a select few were intoxicating with poetry and calm wisdom. Therefore, he often said: “Happy is he who penetrates the secrets of knowledge. He will not be attracted by politics that are disastrous for everyone, he will not offend anyone. As if enchanted, he peers into the eternally young and immortal nature, explores its inviolable order.”

Even over a cup of wine, Euripides did not know how to laugh carefree. How different he was in this sense from Sophocles, who, although he was 15 years older than him, immediately became the soul of every feast, shone, had fun and amused others! The Pyrshe “battlefield” Euripides willingly yielded to this favorite of gods and people. However, he was always upset that, according to the public, he could never compare with him as a poet. Sophocles received his first award at the age of 28, he only at forty. But Euripides did not stop working.” (Kravchuk)

In his tragedies, he does not worship the gods, on the contrary: his gods are endowed with the most disgusting human traits: they are envious, petty, vengeful, capable of destroying a pure, honest, brave person out of jealousy. Such is the fate of Hippolytus, the maddened Hercules, Creusa, who was vilely possessed by Apollo, and then also mercilessly treated the maiden he seduced,

Together with his hero Jonah, Euripides “is indignant that the gods, who created laws for people, themselves trample on them; Therefore, one cannot call people bad if they only imitate the gods. He also does not like the actions of people: royal power is good only in appearance, but in the tyrant’s house it is bad: he selects friends for himself among scoundrels and hates worthy people, fearing to die at their hands. This is not compensated by wealth: it is unpleasant to hold treasures in your hands while hearing reproaches. Good and wise people do not take part in affairs, but prefer to remain silent so as not to arouse the hatred of people in power. Therefore, Jonah likes a moderate life, but free from grief. This mood of Ion was alien to those who occupied an influential place in Athens under Pericles. It is characteristic of people of the next generation, when the vicissitudes of politics forced many to withdraw further from the worries of public life.

In the drama of satyrs, Euripides shows modern man in the images of heroes of mythology. His Polyphemus knows only one god - wealth; everything else is verbal embellishment, hype. How he teaches the “little man” Odysseus who has fallen into his clutches, who in vain tries to convince him of the perils of vile self-interest with arguments from the past of Hellas. Polyphemus despises those who invented the laws. His Zeus is food and drunkenness" (History of Greek Literature)

Euripides knows how many endless misfortunes and bad weather await a person on his life’s path. Experience shows: “If you burn one misfortune, you’ll see: another will come.”

And still

Good prevails, not evil,
Otherwise the light could not have stood.

16. Ancient Greek tragedy. Sophocles and Euripides.

Tragedy. The tragedy comes from ritual actions in honor of Dionysus. Participants in these actions wore masks with goat beards and horns, depicting Dionysus' companions - satyrs. Ritual performances took place during the Great and Lesser Dionysias. Songs in honor of Dionysus were called dithyrambs in Greece. The dithyramb, as Aristotle points out, is the basis of Greek tragedy, which at first retained all the features of the myth of Dionysus. The first tragedies set forth myths about Dionysus: about his suffering, death, resurrection, struggle and victory over his enemies. But then poets began to draw content for their works from other legends. In this regard, the choir began to portray not satyrs, but other mythical creatures or people, depending on the content of the play.

Origin and essence. The tragedy arose from solemn chants. She retained their majesty and seriousness; her heroes became strong personalities, endowed with a strong-willed character and great passions. Greek tragedy always depicted some particularly difficult moments in the life of an entire state or an individual, terrible Crimes, misfortunes and deep moral suffering. There was no place for jokes or laughter.

System. The tragedy begins with a (declamatory) prologue, followed by the entrance of the choir with a song (parod), then episodies (episodes), which are interrupted by the songs of the choir (stasims), the last part is the final stasim (usually solved in the genre of commos) and departure actors and choir - exod. Choral songs divided the tragedy in this way into parts, which in modern drama are called acts. The number of parts varied even among the same author. The three unities of Greek tragedy: place, action and time (the action could only take place from sunrise to sunset), which were supposed to strengthen the illusion of the reality of the action. The unity of time and place significantly limited the development of dramatic elements at the expense of epic ones, characteristic of the evolution of the genus. A number of events necessary in the drama, the depiction of which would violate unity, could only be reported to the viewer. The so-called “messengers” told about what was happening off stage.

Greek tragedy was greatly influenced by Homeric epic. Tragedians borrowed a lot of legends from him. The characters often used expressions borrowed from the Iliad. For dialogues and songs of the choir, playwrights (they are also melurgists, since the poems and music were written by the same person - the author of the tragedy) used iambic trimeter as a form close to living speech (for the differences in dialects in certain parts of the tragedy, see the ancient Greek language ). The tragedy reached its greatest flowering in the 5th century. BC e. in the works of three Athenian poets: Sophocles and Euripides.

Sophocles In Sophocles' tragedies, the main thing is not the external course of events, but the internal torment of the heroes. Sophocles usually explains the general meaning of the plot right away. The external outcome of his plot is almost always easy to predict. Sophocles carefully avoids complicated complications and surprises. His main feature is his tendency to portray people with all their inherent weaknesses, hesitations, mistakes, and sometimes crimes. Sophocles' characters are not general abstract embodiments of certain vices, virtues or ideas. Each of them has a bright personality. Sophocles almost deprives the legendary heroes of their mythical superhumanity. The catastrophes that befall Sophocles' heroes are prepared by the properties of their characters and circumstances, but they are always retribution for the guilt of the hero himself, as in Ajax, or his ancestors, as in Oedipus the King and Antigone. In accordance with the Athenian penchant for dialectics, Sophocles' tragedies develop in a verbal competition between two opponents. It helps the viewer become more aware of whether they are right or wrong. In Sophocles, verbal discussions are not the center of dramas. Scenes filled with deep pathos and at the same time devoid of Euripidean pomposity and rhetoric are found in all the tragedies of Sophocles that have come down to us. Sophocles' heroes experience severe mental anguish, but the positive characters even in them retain full consciousness of their rightness.

« Antigone" (about 442). The plot of "Antigone" belongs to the Theban cycle and is a direct continuation of the tale of the war of the "Seven against Thebes" and the duel between Eteocles and Polyneices. After the death of both brothers, the new ruler of Thebes, Creon, buried Eteocles with due honors, and forbade the body of Polyneices, who went to war against Thebes, to be buried, threatening the disobedient with death. The sister of the victims, Antigone, violated the ban and buried the politician. Sophocles developed this plot from the angle of the conflict between human laws and the “unwritten laws” of religion and morality. The question was relevant: defenders of polis traditions considered “unwritten laws” to be “divinely established” and inviolable, in contrast to the changeable laws of people. Conservative in religious matters, Athenian democracy also demanded respect for “unwritten laws.” The prologue to Antigone also contains another feature that is very common in Sophocles - the opposition of harsh and soft characters: the adamant Antigone is contrasted with the timid Ismene, who sympathizes with her sister, but does not dare to act with her. Antigone puts her plan into action; she covers Polyneices’ body with a thin layer of earth, that is, she performs a symbolic “” burial, which, according to Greek ideas, was sufficient to calm the soul of the deceased. The interpretation of Sophocles' Antigone remained for many years in the direction laid down by Hegel; it is still adhered to by many reputable researchers3. As is known, Hegel saw in Antigone an irreconcilable clash between the idea of ​​statehood and the demand that blood-related ties place on a person: Antigone, who dares to bury her brother in defiance of the royal decree, dies in an unequal struggle with the principle of statehood, but the king Creon, who personifies him, also loses in this clash only son and wife, coming to the end of the tragedy broken and devastated. If Antigone is physically dead, then Creon is crushed morally and awaits death as a blessing (1306-1311). The sacrifices made by the Theban king on the altar of statehood are so significant (let’s not forget that Antigone is his niece) that sometimes he is considered the main hero of the tragedy, who supposedly defends the interests of the state with such reckless determination. It is worth, however, carefully reading the text of Sophocles’ “Antigone” and imagining how it sounded in the specific historical setting of ancient Athens in the late 40s of the 5th century BC. e., so that the interpretation of Hegel loses all the power of evidence.

Analysis of "Antigone" in connection with the specific historical situation in Athens in the 40s of the 5th century BC. e. shows the complete inapplicability of modern concepts of state and individual morality to this tragedy. In Antigone there is no conflict between state and divine law, because for Sophocles the true state law was built on the basis of the divine. In Antigone there is no conflict between the state and the family, because for Sophocles the duty of the state was to protect the natural rights of the family, and no Greek state prohibited citizens from burying their relatives. Antigone reveals the conflict between natural, divine and therefore truly state law and an individual who takes upon himself the courage to represent the state contrary to natural and divine law. Who has the upper hand in this clash? In any case, not Creon, despite the desire of a number of researchers to make him the true hero of the tragedy; Creon's final moral collapse testifies to his complete failure. But can we consider Antigone the winner, alone in unrequited heroism and ingloriously ending her life in a dark dungeon? Here we need to take a closer look at what place her image occupies in the tragedy and by what means it was created. In quantitative terms, Antigone's role is very small - only about two hundred verses, almost two times less than Creon's. In addition, the entire last third of the tragedy, leading the action to the denouement, occurs without her participation. With all this, Sophocles not only convinces the viewer that Antigone is right, but also instills in him deep sympathy for the girl and admiration for her dedication, inflexibility, and fearlessness in the face of death. Antigone's unusually sincere, deeply touching complaints occupy a very important place in the structure of the tragedy. First of all, they deprive her image of any touch of sacrificial asceticism that might arise from the first scenes where she so often confirms her readiness for death. Antigone appears before the viewer as a full-blooded, living person, to whom nothing human is alien either in thoughts or feelings. The more saturated the image of Antigone is with such sensations, the more impressive is her unshakable loyalty to her moral duty. Sophocles quite consciously and purposefully creates an atmosphere of imaginary loneliness around his heroine, because in such an environment her heroic nature is fully manifested. Of course, it was not in vain that Sophocles forced his heroine to die, despite her obvious moral rightness - he saw what a threat to Athenian democracy, which stimulated the comprehensive development of the individual, was at the same time fraught with the hypertrophied self-determination of this individual in her desire to subjugate the natural rights of man. However, not everything in these laws seemed completely explicable to Sophocles, and the best evidence of this is the problematic nature of human knowledge, already emerging in Antigone. Sophocles, in his famous “hymn to man,” ranked “thought as swift as the wind” (phronema) among the greatest achievements of the human race (353-355), joining his predecessor Aeschylus in assessing the capabilities of the mind. If Creon’s fall is not rooted in the unknowability of the world (his attitude towards the murdered Polyneices is in clear contradiction with generally known moral norms), then with Antigone the situation is more complicated. Like Yemena at the beginning of the tragedy, so subsequently Creon and the chorus consider her act a sign of recklessness22, and Antigone is aware that her behavior can be regarded in exactly this way (95, cf. 557). The essence of the problem is formulated in the couplet that ends Antigone’s first monologue: although her act seems stupid to Creon, it seems that the accusation of stupidity comes from a fool (469 ff.). The ending of the tragedy shows that Antigone was not mistaken: Creon pays for his foolishness, and we must give the girl’s feat the full measure of heroic “reasonableness,” since her behavior coincides with the objectively existing, eternal divine law. But since Antigone is awarded not glory but death for her fidelity to this law, she has to question the reasonableness of such an outcome. “What law of the gods did I break? - Antigone therefore asks. “Why should I, unfortunate one, still look to the gods, what allies should I call for help if, by acting piously, I have earned the accusation of impiety?” (921-924). “Look, elders of Thebes... what I endure - and from such a person! - although I revered heaven piously.” For the hero of Aeschylus, piety guaranteed final triumph, for Antigonus it leads to a shameful death; the subjective “reasonableness” of human behavior leads to an objectively tragic result - a contradiction arises between human and divine reason, the resolution of which is achieved at the cost of self-sacrifice of heroic individuality Euripides. (480 BC – 406 BC). Almost all of Euripides' surviving plays were created during the Peloponnesian War (431–404 BC) between Athens and Sparta, which had a huge influence on all aspects of life in ancient Hellas. And the first feature of Euripides’ tragedies is the burning modernity: heroic-patriotic motives, hostile attitude towards Sparta, the crisis of ancient slave-owning democracy, the first crisis of religious consciousness associated with the rapid development of materialist philosophy, etc. In this regard, Euripides’ attitude to mythology is especially indicative: myth becomes for the playwright only material for reflecting modern events; he allows himself to change not only minor details of classical mythology, but also to give unexpected rational interpretations of well-known plots (for example, in Iphigenia in Tauris, human sacrifices are explained by the cruel customs of the barbarians). The gods in the works of Euripides often appear more cruel, insidious and vengeful than people (Hippolytus, Hercules, etc.). It is precisely because of this that the “dues ex machina” (“God from the machine”) technique became so widespread in the dramaturgy of Euripides, when at the end of the work, God who suddenly appears hastily dispenses justice. In Euripides' interpretation, divine providence could hardly consciously care about the restoration of justice. However, the main innovation of Euripides, which caused rejection among most of his contemporaries, was the depiction of human characters. Euripides, as Aristotle noted in his Poetics, brought people onto the stage as they are in life. The heroes and especially the heroines of Euripides do not at all have integrity, their characters are complex and contradictory, and high feelings, passions, thoughts are closely intertwined with base ones. This gave the tragic characters of Euripides versatility, evoking a complex range of feelings in the audience - from empathy to horror. Expanding the palette of theatrical and visual means, he widely used everyday vocabulary; along with the choir, increased the volume of the so-called. monody (solo singing by an actor in a tragedy). Monodies were introduced into theatrical use by Sophocles, but the widespread use of this technique is associated with the name of Euripides. The clash of opposing positions of characters in the so-called. Euripides aggravated agons (verbal competitions of characters) through the use of stichomythia, i.e. exchange of poems between participants in the dialogue.

Medea. The image of a suffering person is the most characteristic feature of Euripides's work. Man himself contains forces that can plunge him into the abyss of suffering. Such a person is, in particular, Medea - the heroine of the tragedy of the same name, staged in 431. The sorceress Medea, the daughter of the Colchis king, fell in love with Jason, who arrived in Colchis, and provided him with invaluable help, teaching him to overcome all obstacles and get the Golden Fleece. She sacrificed her homeland, maiden honor, and good name to Jason; the more difficult Medea now experiences Jason’s desire to leave her with two sons after several years of happy family life and marry the daughter of the Corinthian king, who also orders Medea and the children to get out of his country. An insulted and abandoned woman is concocting a terrible plan: not only to destroy her rival, but also to kill her own children; this way she can take full revenge on Jason. The first half of this plan is carried out without much difficulty: having supposedly resigned herself to her situation, Medea, through her children, sends Jason’s bride an expensive outfit soaked in poison. The gift was favorably accepted, and now Medea faces the most difficult test - she must kill the children. The thirst for revenge fights in her with her maternal feelings, and she changes her decision four times until a messenger appears with a menacing message: the princess and her father died in terrible agony from poison, and a crowd of angry Corinthians is rushing to Medea’s house to deal with her and her children. . Now, when the boys are facing imminent death, Medea finally decides to commit a terrible crime. Before Jason returning in anger and despair, Medea appears on a magic chariot floating in the air; on the mother's lap are the corpses of the children she killed. The atmosphere of magic surrounding the ending of the tragedy and, to some extent, the appearance of Medea herself, cannot hide the deeply human content of her image. Unlike the heroes of Sophocles, who never deviate from the path once chosen, Medea is shown in repeated transitions from furious anger to pleas, from indignation to imaginary humility, in the struggle of conflicting feelings and thoughts. The deepest tragedy of the image of Medea is also given by sad reflections on the lot of a woman, whose position in the Athenian family was indeed unenviable: being under the vigilant supervision of first her parents and then her husband, she was doomed to remain a recluse in the female half of the house all her life. In addition, when getting married, no one asked the girl about her feelings: marriages were concluded by parents who were striving for a deal beneficial to both parties. Medea sees the deep injustice of this state of affairs, which places a woman at the mercy of a stranger, a person unfamiliar to her, who is often not inclined to burden himself too much with marriage ties.

Yes, between those who breathe and those who think, We women are none more unhappy. We pay for our husbands, and not cheaply. And if you buy it, then he is your master, not a slave... After all, a husband, when he is tired of the hearth, On the side with love his heart is soothed, They have friends and peers, but we have to look into our eyes hateful. The everyday atmosphere of Euripides's contemporary Athens also affected the image of Jason, which was far from any idealization. A selfish careerist, a student of the sophists, who knows how to turn any argument in his favor, he either justifies his treachery with references to the well-being of the children, for whom his marriage should provide civil rights in Corinth, or explains the help he once received from Medea by the omnipotence of Cypris. The unusual interpretation of the mythological legend and the internally contradictory image of Medea were assessed by Euripides' contemporaries in a completely different way than by subsequent generations of viewers and readers. The ancient aesthetics of the classical period assumed that in the struggle for the marital bed, an offended woman has the right to take the most extreme measures against her husband who cheated on her and her rival. But the revenge to which one’s own children become victims did not fit into aesthetic norms that required internal integrity from the tragic hero. Therefore, the famous “Medea” ended up only in third place during its first production, i.e., in essence, it was a failure.

17. Ancient geocultural space. Phases of development of ancient civilization Cattle breeding, agriculture, metal mining in mines, crafts, and trade developed intensively. The patriarchal tribal organization of society was disintegrating. The wealth inequality of families grew. The clan nobility, which had increased its wealth through the widespread use of slave labor, fought for power. Public life proceeded rapidly - in social conflicts, wars, unrest, political upheavals. Ancient culture throughout its existence remained in the embrace of mythology. However, the dynamics of social life, the complication of social relations, and the growth of knowledge undermined the archaic forms of mythological thinking. Having learned from the Phoenicians the art of alphabetical writing and improved it by introducing letters denoting vowel sounds, the Greeks were able to record and accumulate historical, geographical, astronomical information, collect observations regarding natural phenomena, technical inventions, morals and customs of people. The need to maintain public order in the state demanded the replacement of unwritten tribal norms of behavior enshrined in myths with logically clear and orderly codes of laws. Public political life stimulated the development of oratory skills, the ability to persuade people, contributing to the growth of a culture of thinking and speech. The improvement of production and handicraft labor, urban construction, and military art increasingly went beyond the scope of ritual and ceremonial models consecrated by myth. Signs of civilization: *separation of physical and mental labor; *writing; *the emergence of cities as centers of cultural and economic life. Features of civilization: -the presence of a center with the concentration of all spheres of life and their weakening on the periphery (when urban residents of small towns are called “villages”); -ethnic core (people) - in Ancient Rome - the Romans, in Ancient Greece - the Hellenes (Greeks); -formed ideological system (religion); -tendency to expand (geographically, culturally); cities; -a single information field with language and writing; -formation of external trade relations and zones of influence; -stages of development (growth - peak of prosperity - decline, death or transformation). Features of ancient civilization: 1) Agricultural basis. Mediterranean triad - growing grains, grapes and olives without artificial irrigation. 2) Private property relations, the dominance of private commodity production, oriented primarily to the market, emerged. 3) “polis” - “city-state”, covering the city itself and the territory adjacent to it. Polis were the first republics in the history of all mankind. The ancient form of land ownership dominated in the polis community; it was used by those who were members of the civil community. Under the policy system, hoarding was condemned. In most policies, the supreme body of power was the people's assembly. He had the right to make final decisions on the most important policy issues. The polis represented an almost complete coincidence of political structure, military organization and civil society. 4) In the field of development of material culture, the emergence of new technology and material values ​​was noted, crafts developed, sea harbors were built and new cities arose, and maritime transport was built. Periodization of ancient culture: 1) Homeric era (XI-IX centuries BC) The main form of public control is the “culture of shame” - the immediate condemning reaction of the people to the deviation of the hero’s behavior from the norm. Gods are regarded as part of nature; man, while worshiping the gods, can and should build relationships with them rationally. The Homeric era demonstrates competition (agon) as the norm of cultural creativity and lays the agonistic foundation of the entire European culture 2) Archaic era (VIII-VI centuries BC) The result of a new type of social relations is the law “nomos” as an impersonal legal norm, equally binding for everyone. A society is being formed in which every full-fledged citizen is an owner and politician, expressing private interests through the maintenance of public ones, and peaceful virtues are brought to the fore. The gods protect and support a new social and natural order (cosmos), in which relationships are regulated by the principles of cosmic compensation and measures and are subject to rational comprehension in various natural philosophical systems. 3) The Classical Age (5th century BC) - the rise of the Greek genius in all areas of culture - art, literature, philosophy and science. On the initiative of Pericles, the Parthenon, the famous temple in honor of Athena the Virgin, was erected in the center of Athens on the acropolis. Tragedies, comedies and satyr dramas were staged in the Athenian theater. The victory of the Greeks over the Persians, the awareness of the advantages of law over arbitrariness and despotism contributed to the formation of the idea of ​​​​man as an independent (autarkic) personality. The law acquires the character of a rational legal idea, subject to discussion. In the era of Pericles, social life serves the self-development of man. At the same time, the problems of human individualism began to be realized, and the problem of the unconscious was revealed to the Greeks. 4) Hellenistic era (IV century BC) examples of Greek culture spread throughout the world as a result of the aggressive campaigns of Alexander the Great. But at the same time, the ancient city policies lost their former independence. Ancient Rome took up the cultural baton. The main cultural achievements of Rome date back to the era of the empire, when the cult of practicality, state, and law dominated. The main virtues were politics, war, governance.

Ancient Greek theater. In the ancient theater, the play was staged only once - its repetition was the greatest rarity, and the performances themselves were given only three times a year - during holidays in honor of the god Dionysus. In early spring, the Great Dionysius coped, in late December - early January - the Lesser Dionysia, and Lenya fell on the horses of January - early February. The ancient theater resembled an open stadium: its rows rose around the orchestra - the platform where the action took place. Behind it, the ring of spectator seats was opened by a skena - a small tent where theatrical props were stored and actors changed clothes. Later, the skene began to be used as an element of decoration - it depicted a house or palace, as required by the plot.

Most is known about the theatrical life of Athens. Famous authors of tragedies and comedies lived here: Aeschylus, Sophocles, Euripides, Aristophanes, Menander. The theater in Athens was located on the slope of the Acropolis hill and accommodated fifteen thousand spectators. The performances began early in the morning and continued until the evening, and so on for several days in a row. For each holiday, playwrights presented their works. A special jury chose the best drama. After each performance, the names of the authors, the titles of the plays and their assigned places were written on marble boards.

The Greeks did not have to work on the days of theatrical performances; on the contrary, visiting the theater was the responsibility of Athenian citizens. The poorest were even paid money to make up for losses. This respect for dramatic art is explained by the fact that the Athenians honored the god Dionysus with theatrical performances.

It was customary to write tragedies in fours - tetralogies: three tragedies on some mythological plot and a fourth to them - no longer a tragedy, but an entertaining play. It involved not only the heroes of the myth, but also forest demons, similar to people, but covered with hair, with goat horns or horse ears, with a tail and hooves - satyrs. The drama with their participation was called satyr drama.

Greek actors were limited in their capabilities compared to modern ones: their faces were covered with masks corresponding to one or another character. Tragic actors wore buskins - shoes with a high “platform” that interfered with movement. But the heroes seemed taller and more significant. The main means of expression were voice and plastic arts. In the first theatrical productions there was only one actor, and his partner was the choir or corypheus, that is, the leader of the choir. Aeschylus suggested introducing a second actor, and Sophocles - a third. If there were more than three characters in the tragedy, then one actor played several roles, including female ones: only men were allowed to act in ancient Greece.

There was a lot of music in Greek plays. One of the most important roles necessarily belonged to the choir - a kind of collective character. The chorus did not take part in the action, but actively commented on it, assessed the characters, condemned them or praised them, entering into conversation with them, and sometimes indulged in philosophical reasoning. In tragedies, the choir was serious and thoughtful. Most often, as the author intended, he represented the respectable citizens of the city in which the action takes place. In comedies, the chorus was often made up of comic characters. In Aristophanes, for example, these are frogs, birds, clouds. His famous comedies have corresponding names. The performances were based on alternating singing and recitation.

The tragedy began with a singing choir emerging from the skena into the orchestra. The choral part performed in motion was called parod (translated from Greek as “passage”). After this, the choir remained in the orchestra until the end. The speeches of the actors were called episody (literally “incoming”, “extraneous”, “irrelevant”). This name caused scientists to assume that dramatic performances arose from choral parts and it was the choir that was initially the main “actor”. Each episodia was followed by a stasim (Greek: “motionless”, “standing”) - the choir part. Their alternation could be disrupted by kommos (Greek “blow”, “beat”) - a passionate or mournful song, lament for a hero; it was performed by a duet between a luminary and an actor. Exodus (Greek, “exodus”, “exit”) is the final part of the tragedy. Like the opening one, it was musical: leaving the orchestra, the choir performed its part together with the actor.

The Greek tragedy lived a short life - only 100 years. Its ancestor is considered to be Thespis, who lived in the 6th century. BC e., but only names and minor fragments have reached us from his tragedies. And in Euripides, tragedy gradually lost its original appearance; choral parts were replaced by acting parts, music by recitation. In essence, Euripides turned tragedy into everyday drama.

Greek comedy also changed its appearance. Comedies began to be staged in the 5th century. BC e. Comedy productions of this time had their own rules. The actors opened the performance; this scene was called prologue (Greek “preliminary word”), after Aeschylus prologues also appeared in tragedies. Then the choir entered. The comedy also consisted of episodies, but there were no stasims in it, since the chorus did not freeze in one place, but directly intervened in the action. When the heroes argued, quarreled or fought, proving that they were right, the choir was divided into two half-choirs and added fuel to the fire with passionate comments. The comedy included a parabassa (Greek for “passing by”) - a choral part that had almost nothing to do with the plot. In the parabass, the choir seemed to speak on behalf of the author, who addressed the audience, characterizing his own work.

Over time, choral parts in comedy were reduced, and already in the 4th century. BC e. Greek comedy, like tragedy, came closer in form and content to everyday drama. Many words from the Greek theatrical lexicon have remained in modern European languages, often with different meanings. And the word “theater” comes from the Greek “theatron” - “a place where people gather to watch.”

Works of Aeschylus. Aeschylus (525-456 BC). His work is associated with the era of the formation of the Athenian democratic state. This state was formed during the Greco-Persian wars, which were fought with short interruptions from 500 to 449 BC. and had a liberating character for the Greek city-states. It is known that Aeschylus took part in the battles of Marathon and Salamis. He described the Battle of Salamis as an eyewitness to the tragedy of the Persians. The inscription on his tombstone, composed, according to legend, by himself, says nothing about him as a playwright, but says that he proved himself a courageous warrior in battles with the Persians. Aeschylus wrote about 80 tragedies and satyr dramas. Only seven tragedies have reached us in their entirety; Small excerpts from other works have survived.

Aeschylus's tragedies reflect the main trends of his time, those huge changes in socio-economic and cultural life that were caused by the collapse of the clan system and the emergence of Athenian slave-owning democracy.

Aeschylus' worldview was basically religious and mythological. He believed that there is an eternal world order that is subject to the law of world justice. A person who voluntarily or unwittingly violates a fair order will be punished by the gods, and thereby balance will be restored. The idea of ​​the inevitability of retribution and the triumph of justice runs through all of Aeschylus’ tragedies. Aeschylus believes in fate-Moira, believes that even the gods obey her. However, this traditional worldview is also mixed with new views generated by the developing Athenian democracy. Thus, the heroes of Aeschylus are not weak-willed creatures who unconditionally carry out the will of the deity: his man is endowed with a free mind, thinks and acts completely independently. Almost every hero of Aeschylus faces the problem of choosing a line of behavior. A person’s moral responsibility for his actions is one of the main themes of the playwright’s tragedies.

Aeschylus introduced a second actor into his tragedies and thereby opened up the possibility of a deeper development of the tragic conflict and strengthened the effective side of theatrical performance. This was a real revolution in the theater: instead of the old tragedy, where the parts of a single actor and chorus filled the entire play, a new tragedy was born in which the characters collided with each other on stage and directly motivated their actions. The external structure of Aeschylus's tragedy retains traces of proximity to the dithyramb, where the lead singer's parts alternated with the choir's parts.

Of the tragedies of the great playwright that have survived to our time, the following stand out: ;"Prometheus Bound"- the most famous tragedy of Aeschylus, telling about the feat of the titan Prometheus, who gave fire to people and was severely punished for it. Nothing is known about the time of writing and production. The historical basis for such a tragedy could only be the evolution of primitive society, the transition to civilization. Aeschylus convinces the viewer of the need to fight all tyranny and despotism. This struggle is only possible through constant progress. The benefits of civilization, according to Aeschylus, are primarily theoretical sciences: arithmetic. Grammar, astronomy, and practice: construction, mining, etc. In the tragedy, he paints the image of a fighter, a moral winner. The human spirit cannot be overcome by anything. This is a story about the struggle against the supreme deity Zeus (Zeus is depicted as a despot, traitor, coward and cunning). In general, the work is striking in its brevity and insignificant content of choral parts (it deprives the tragedy of the oratorical genre traditional for Aeschylus). The dramaturgy is also very weak, the genre of recitation. The characters are also monolithic and static as in other works of Aeschylus. There are no contradictions in the heroes; they each have one trait. Not characters, general schemes. There is no action, the tragedy consists exclusively of monologues and dialogues (artistic, but not dramatic at all). The style is monumental and pathetic (although the characters are only gods, pathetism is weakened - long conversations, philosophical content, rather calm character). The tone is a laudatory-rhetorical declamation addressed to the only hero of the tragedy, Prometheus. Everything exalts Prometheus. The development of the action is a gradual and steady intensification of the tragedy of Prometheus’s personality and a gradual increase in the monumental-pathetic style of the tragedy.

Aeschylus is known as the best exponent of the social aspirations of his time. In his tragedies, he shows the victory of progressive principles in the development of society, in the state structure, in morality. The work of Aeschylus had a significant influence on the development of world poetry and drama. Aeschylus is a champion of enlightenment, this tragedy is educational, the attitude towards mythology is critical.

Works of Sophocles (496-406 BC) . Sophocles is a famous Athenian tragedian. Born in February 495 BC. e., in the Athenian suburb of Colon. The poet sang in tragedy the place of his birth, long glorified by the shrines and altars of Poseidon, Athena, Eumenides, Demeter, Prometheus "Oedipus at Colonus". He came from a wealthy Sofill family and received a good education.

After the Battle of Salamis (480 BC) he participated in the national festival as the leader of the choir. He was twice elected to the position of military commander and once served as a member of the board in charge of the union treasury. The Athenians chose Sophocles as their military leader in 440 BC. e. during the Samian War, under the impression of his tragedy "Antigone", the production of which dates back to 441 BC. e.

His main occupation was composing tragedies for the Athenian theater. The first tetralogy, staged by Sophocles in 469 BC. e., brought him victory over Aeschylus and opened up a number of victories won on stage in competitions with other tragedians. The critic Aristophanes of Byzantium attributed it to Sophocles 123 tragedies.

Seven tragedies of Sophocles have come down to us, of which, in content, three belong to the Theban cycle of legends: “Oedipus”, “Oedipus at Colonus” and “Antigone”; one to the Hercules cycle - "Dejanira", and three to the Trojan cycle: "Eant", the earliest of the tragedies of Sophocles, "Electra" and "Philoctetes". In addition, about 1000 fragments have been preserved by different writers. In addition to tragedies, antiquity attributed to Sophocles elegies, paeans and prosaic discourse on the choir.

Tragedy "Oedipus the King". Remaining true to the main lines of the Homeric myth, Sophocles subjects it to the finest psychological development, and, preserving the details (known not from Homer) of the fatal fate of Laius and his offspring, makes his work not a “tragedy of fate” at all, but a genuine human drama with deep conflicts between Oedipus and Creon, Oedipus and Tiresias, with a depiction of the experiences of the characters full of life truth. Following the rules of construction of Greek tragedy, Sophocles uses this construction in such a way that all events unfold naturally and truthfully. From the myth of Oedipus, which is known not only from the Odyssey, but also from other works. According to sources, Sophocles took the following main events for his tragedy:

1) saving the doomed infant Oedipus

2) departure of Oedipus from Corinth

3) Oedipus' murder of Laius

4) Oedipus' solution to the riddle of the Sphinx

5) proclamation of Oedipus as king of Thebes and marriage to Jocasta

6) revealing the crimes of Oedipus

7) the death of Jocasta.

If we limit ourselves only to these moments, then the dramatic action will turn out to be based only on the fatal fate of Oedipus, but no psychological tragedy (except for the despair of Oedipus and Jocasta) will result. Sophocles complicates the mythological outline by developing such moments that help him push into the background the fatal fate of his hero and make it possible to turn the mythological plot into a genuine human drama, where internal psychological conflicts and socio-political problems come first. This is the main and deep content of both “Oedipus the King” and “Antigone”. Jocasta's experiences give Sophocles a wide field for depicting female character in all its complexity. This can be judged by the images of Antigone and Electra, and by the images of Ismene. Sophocles uses the image of the soothsayer Tiresias to depict the conflict arising from the clash of everyday norms with religious norms (dialogue between Oedipus and Tiresias). In "E.-ts." Sophocles depicts mainly the personal struggle of Oedipus with forces hostile to him, personified in his mind by Creon and Tiresias. Both of them are formally right in Sophocles’ portrayal: Tiresias is also right, to whom the crimes of Oedipus are revealed; Creon is also right, in vain suspected of striving for royal power and reproaching Oedipus for his self-confidence and conceit, but sympathy is evoked only by Oedipus, who takes all measures to reveal the unknown the culprit of the murder of Lai and the tragedy of whose situation lies in the fact that, while looking for the criminal, he little by little learns that he is the criminal - himself.

This recognition of both his origin from Laius and Jocasta and the secret of the murder of Laius not only reveals to Oedipus the whole horror of his fate, but also leads to the consciousness of his own guilt. And so Oedipus, without waiting for any punishment from above, passes judgment on himself and blinds himself and condemns himself to expulsion from Thebes. In this verdict to himself, accompanied by a request to Creon:

Oh, drive me out quickly - there,
Wherever I would not hear human greetings, -

there is a deep meaning: a person himself must be responsible for his actions and place his own self-consciousness above the decisions of the gods; Mortals, according to Sophocles, are superior to the immortal and serene gods because their lives are spent in constant struggle, in an effort to overcome any obstacles.

The works of Euripides. Euripides (480 - 406 BC) - ancient Greek playwright, representative of the new Attic tragedy, in which psychology prevails over the idea of ​​​​divine fate. Of the 92 plays attributed to Euripides in antiquity, the titles of 80 can be reconstructed. Of these, 18 tragedies have come down to us, of which “Res” is believed to have been written by a later poet, and the satirical drama “Cyclops” is the only surviving example of this genre. The best ancient dramas of Euripides are lost to us; Of the survivors, only “Hippolytus” was crowned. Among the surviving plays, the earliest is Alceste, and the later ones include Iphigenia at Aulis and The Bacchae.

The preferential development of female roles in tragedy was an innovation of Euripides. Hecuba, Polyxena, Cassandra, Andromache, Macaria, Iphigenia, Helen, Electra, Medea, Phaedra, Creusa, Andromeda, Agave and many other heroines of the legends of Hellas are complete and vital types. Motifs of marital and maternal love, tender devotion, violent passion, female vindictiveness alloyed with cunning, deceit and cruelty occupy a very prominent place in the dramas of Euripides. Euripides' women surpass his men in willpower and intensity of feelings. Also, slaves and slaves in his plays are not soulless extras, but have characters, human traits and show feelings like free citizens, forcing the audience to empathize. Only a few of the surviving tragedies satisfy the requirement of completeness and unity of action. The author's strength lies primarily in psychologism and deep elaboration of individual scenes and monologues. The main interest of Euripides' tragedies lies in the diligent depiction of mental states, usually tense to the extreme.

Tragedy "Hippolytus". The tragedy (428) is close in dynamics and character to the tragedy “Medea”. The depiction is of a young Athenian queen who fell in love with her stepson. Just like in Medea, the psychologism of a suffering soul is shown, which despises itself for its criminal passion, but at the same time only thinks about its beloved. There is also a conflict between duty and passion here (Phaedra commits suicide, accusing Hippolytus of attacking her honor; passion won). The secrets of the heroines' spiritual lives are realistically revealed. Reflected the thoughts and feelings of his contemporaries.

The works of Aristophanes. Aristophanes' literary activity took place between 427 and 388. In its main part it falls on the period of the Peloponnesian War and the crisis of the Athenian state. The intensified struggle around the political program of radical democracy, contradictions between city and countryside, issues of war and peace, the crisis of traditional ideology and new trends in philosophy and literature - all this was reflected in the work of Aristophanes. Comedy it, in addition to its artistic significance, is a valuable historical source reflecting the political and cultural life of Athens at the end of the fifth century. Aristophanes appears as an admirer of the state order of the times of the growth of Athenian democracy, an opponent of the oligarchy, Aristophanes’ comedy most often conveys the political sentiments of the Attic peasantry. Peacefully making fun of fans of antiquity, he turns the edge of his comedic talent against the leaders of the urban demos and representatives of new-fangled ideological movements.

Among the political comedies of Aristophanes, “The Riders” is notable for its acuteness, which is directed against the leader of the radical party Cleon. A number of Aristophanes' comedies are directed against the military party and are dedicated to praising peace. Thus, in the comedy “Akharnyan”, the peasant makes personal peace with neighboring communities and is blissful, while the boastful warrior suffers from the hardships of war. In the comedy Lysistrata, the women of the warring regions go on a “strike” and force the men to make peace.

Comedy "Frogs". Splits into two parts. The first depicts the journey of Dionysus to the kingdom of the dead. The god of tragic competitions, concerned about the emptiness on the tragic stage after the recent deaths of Euripides and Sophocles, goes to the underworld to bring out his favorite Euripides. This part of the comedy is filled with buffoonish scenes and spectacular effects. The cowardly Dionysus, who had stocked up on the lion skin of Hercules for the dangerous journey, and his slave find themselves in various comic situations, meeting with the figures with whom Greek folklore populated the kingdom of the dead. Dionysus, out of fear, changes roles with the slave and each time to his own detriment. The comedy got its name from the choir of frogs who sing their songs during the crossing of Dionysus to the underworld on Charon's shuttle. The choir parade is interesting to us because it represents a reproduction of cult songs in honor of Dionysus. The hymns and ridicule of the choir are preceded by an introductory speech by the leader - a prototype of a comedic parabassa.

The problems of "Frogs" are concentrated in the second half of the comedy, in the agony of Aeschylus and Euripides. Euripides, who has recently arrived in the underworld, lays claim to the tragic throne, which until then undoubtedly belonged to Aeschylus, and Dionysus is invited as a competent person - the judge of the competition. Aeschylus turns out to be the winner, and Dionysus takes him with him to earth, contrary to the original plans. intention to take Euripides. The competition in “Frogs,” which partially parodies the sophistic methods of evaluating a literary work, is the oldest monument of ancient literary criticism. The style of both rivals and their prologues are analyzed. The first part examines the main question of the tasks of poetic art, the tasks of tragedy. Euripides:

For truthful speeches, for good advice and for being smarter and better
They make citizens of their native land.

According to the precepts of Homer, in tragedies I created majestic heroes -
And Patroclus and Teucrov with a soul like a lion. I wanted to raise citizens to them,
So that they can stand on a par with the heroes when they hear the trumpets of battle.

The work of Aristophanes ends one of the most brilliant periods in the history of Greek culture. He provides a powerful, bold and truthful, often profound satire on the political and cultural state of Athens during the crisis of democracy and the coming decline of the polis. His comedy reflects the most diverse layers of society: statesmen and generals, poets and philosophers, peasants, city dwellers and slaves; caricatured typical masks take on the character of clear, generalizing images.

Literature of Ancient Rome. Literary heritage of Cicero, Caesar, Publius Ovid Naso, Quintus Horace Flaccus (to choose from)

Literature of Ancient Rome. Periodization:

1. Preclassic period characterized first, as in Greece, by oral folk literature, as well as the beginning of writing. Until half of the 3rd century. BC. this period is usually called Italic. Rome extended its power to all of Italy. From the middle of the 3rd century. BC. written literature is developing.

Prepared by purely national works of literature and the sufficient development of writing, Roman literature, at the beginning of the 6th century in Rome, entered a completely new phase. The wars that Rome waged with Tarentum and other Greek cities of Southern Italy not only familiarized the mass of the Roman people with the high cultural development of Hellenic life, but also brought many Greeks with a literary education to Rome as prisoners. One of them was Livius Andronicus from Tarentum, brought as a prisoner by M. Livius Salinator, from whom he received his Roman name. While teaching Greek and Latin in Rome, he translated Homer's Odyssey into Latin as a textbook and began writing plays for theatrical performances. He performed the first of these plays, translated or remade from Greek, in the second year after the end of the 1st Punic War, that is, in 514 from the founding of Rome (240 BC). This year, also noted by ancient writers, is considered the beginning of Roman literature in the strict sense of the word. The surviving minor fragments from the translation of the Odyssey and the dramatic works of Livy Andronicus show that he did not know enough Latin; judging by the reviews of him as a writer by Cicero and Livy, he was generally a bad writer. His “Odyssey” seemed to Cicero to be something antediluvian, an opus aliquod Daedali, and the religious hymn he composed on the occasion of the favorable turn of the 2nd Punic War evokes in T. Livy the expression: abhorrens et inconditum carmen. Nevertheless, his literary activity marked the beginning of a revolution, which, capturing more and more the spiritual activity of the Roman people, brought Roman literature to classical completeness and gave it worldwide significance.

2. Classical period Roman literature - the time of crisis and the end of the republic (from the 80s to the 30th year of the 1st century BC) and the era of the Principia of Augustus (until the 14th year of the 1st century AD). Comes to the fore satire, a completely Roman type of literature, subsequently brought to a wide and varied development. The founder of this satire, as a special literary form, was Gaius Lucilius (died in 651 Rome, 103 BC).

At this time it had a very clear effect in comedy. Instead of the Greek-imitative comedy of the previous century, the comedy of the cloak, is a comedy togas, with Latin names of the characters, with Roman costume, with Latin locations: all this was impossible in the previous century, under the strictness of aristocratic theatrical censorship. Representatives of this national comedy were Titinius, Atta and Afranius.

The movement towards national comedy went even further. The comedy of the toga, national in content, was still compiled in the form of Greek comedies. In the 2nd half of the 7th century they appeared on stage Atellans, a completely original comedy of characteristic masks, under which certain types were constantly presented (a fool, a glutton, an ambitious but narrow-minded old man, a learned charlatan), to which were added masks of monsters, which amused and frightened the audience in a ruder way than the masks of characteristic human types. It was a purely folk comedy, of Oscan origin in its name (Atella - the city of Campania).

The 7th century of Rome is also distinguished by extraordinary tension in the development of prose literature, namely in the field of history and eloquence of Cicero and Quintus. A particularly strong impetus was given to eloquence by the turbulent era of the struggle between democracy and oligarchy, begun by the Gracchi and lasting until the fall of the republic.

3. But already at the beginning of the 1st century AD. the features of the decline of the classical period are quite clearly outlined. This process continues until the fall of the Western Roman Empire in 476 AD. This time can already be called the post-classical period of Roman literature. Here we should distinguish between the literature of the heyday of the empire (1st century) and the literature of the crisis, the fall of the empire (2-5 centuries AD). The same mythology is preserved as in Greece, but some of the names of the gods are changed (Juno, Venus).

The most prominent phenomenon in the poetry of the Silver Age, camupa, having Persia and Juvenal as its representatives, also did not escape the pernicious influence of rhetorical schools, but, as a type of poetry that, being close to real life, did not need to resort to counterfeiting feelings, suffered much less from this influence. In view of the danger that threatened the writer for a bold word, satire was forced to scourge living people in the person of the dead and turn to the past, thinking about the present. She could not help but delve into abstract discussions about the heights of virtue and the baseness of vice and, feeling disgust for the latter, who triumphed amidst terrifying despotism and depravity, she could not help but deliberately exaggerate the colors and not use any artificial means of rhetoric in order to enhance the impression and thus somehow reward writer for constraint in the free expression of feelings. In satire, however, passionate indignation was caused by monstrous pictures of real life, and was not a pointless exercise in recitation, as in epic and tragedy; rhetorical means are here, therefore, like tools of literary art, more or less expedient. In any case, satire, with its proud and indignant verse, seems to be the most gratifying phenomenon in the poetic literature of the Silver Age, especially in view of the creeping poetry of epics and lyricists, who glorified in the most humiliating way not only Domitian, but also his rich and influential freedmen.

A particularly striking feature of the poetry of this period, so abundant in poets, is rhetorical color. This was due to both political circumstances and the new conditions of education in rhetoric schools. Constrained by political oppression in the freedom of its movement, the literary word begins to lose its naturalness in expression and tries to replace the lack of serious content with a desire for a purely external effect, sophistication of turns, artificiality of pathos and the brilliance of witty maxims. These shortcomings were further aggravated by school education, which, in turn, was adapted to the requirements of the new time. Since great orators were not required, they began to prepare rhetoricians, training young people in recitation and at the same time choosing, in order to refine their talent, sometimes the most incredible and, in any case, pretentious or most alien to real life topics - about parricide, about doomed to prostitution priestess, etc.

Literary heritage of Cicero. In eloquence, two directions were known: Asian and Attic. The Asian style was distinguished by flowery language, aphorisms and metrical construction of the ends of the period and its parts. Atticism is characterized by a condensed, simple language.

Cicero (106-43 BC) developed a style that combined both Asian and Attic directions. His first speech that has come down to us, “In Defense of Quinctius,” about the return of illegally seized property to him, brought Cicero success. He achieved even greater success with his speech “In Defense of Roscius Amerinsky.” Defending Roscius, whom his relatives accused of murdering his own father, Cicero opposed the violence of the Sullan regime, Cicero achieved popularity among the people. In 66 he was elected praetor and gave a speech “On the appointment of Gnaeus Pompey as commander.” In this speech he defends the interests of money people and directs against the nobility. This speech ends Cicero's speeches against the Senate.

In 63 he became consul, began to speak out against the interests of the poor and democracy, and branded their leader Lucius Catiline with disgrace. Ketilina led a conspiracy whose goal was an armed uprising and the murder of Cicero. Cicero found out about this and in his 4 speeches against Catiline attributes all sorts of vices to him.

Marcus Tullius Cicero published more than a hundred speeches, political and judicial, of which 58 have survived completely or in significant fragments. 19 treatises on rhetoric, politics and philosophy have also reached us, from which many generations of lawyers studied oratory, studying, in particular, such techniques of Cicero , like lamentation. More than 800 letters from Cicero also survive, containing a wealth of biographical information and a wealth of valuable information about Roman society at the end of the republic.

His philosophical treatises, which do not contain new ideas, are valuable because they present, in detail and without distortion, the teachings of the leading philosophical schools of his time: the Stoics, Academicians and Epicureans.

Cicero's works had a strong influence on religious thinkers, in particular St. Augustine, representatives of the Renaissance and humanism (Petrarch, Erasmus of Rotterdam, Boccaccio), French educators (Diderot, Voltaire, Rousseau, Montesquieu) and many others.

Famous treatise “On the Orator”(a dialogue between two famous speakers, Licinius Crassus and Mark Antony, Crassus put his views into the mouth: the speaker must be a versatile person. It also concerns the structure and content of speech, its design, language, rhythm, periodicity.) was written after his return to Rome after exile, wrote treatises "Orator" (explains his opinion on the use of different styles depending on the content of speech and details the theory of rhythm, especially in the endings of members of the period) "Brutus" (talks about the history of Greek and Roman eloquence in order to show the superiority of Roman orators over Greek). In his speeches, he himself notes “an abundance of thoughts and words,” a desire to divert the attention of judges from unfavorable facts. He said that “the speaker should exaggerate the fact.” In theoretical works on eloquence, he summarized the principles that he followed in his practical activities.

Caesar's literary heritage. Politician and commander who laid the largest brick in the foundation of the Roman Empire.
An outstanding commander and statesman of Ancient Rome, Gaius Julius Caesar was born in 101 BC. and came from the patrician family of the Yulievs. Related to C. Marius and Cinna, during the reign of Sulla he was forced to leave Rome for Asia Minor. After Sulla's death in 78 BC. Julius Caesar returned to Rome and joined the political struggle, opposing Sulla's supporters. In 73, he was elected military tribune and, then going through all levels of public service, eventually became praetor in 62, and then for two years he was governor of the Roman province of Hispania Fara and displayed extraordinary administrative and military abilities in this post. To strengthen his political position and secure his election as consul in 59, Caesar entered into an alliance with the most influential political figures of the time, Gnaeus Pompey and Marcus Crassus (the “first triumvirate”). After the end of his consulate, he achieved appointment as governor of Cisalpine and then of Narbonese Gaul with the right to recruit legions and wage war. During the war of 58-51, Caesar's troops conquered all of Gaul from Belgica to Aquitaine, the size of his army was increased to 10 legions, which was twice the number allowed to him by the Senate; the commander himself, although being in the province, continued to interfere in the political struggle in Rome. The death of Crassus in Parthia led to the collapse of the triumvirate, which was also facilitated by the aggravation of relations between Caesar and Pompey. This aggravation led to the outbreak of civil war in Rome: Pompey led the supporters of the Senate Republic, and Caesar led its opponents. Having defeated the Pompeian troops in several battles in 49-45, Caesar found himself at the head of the Roman state, and his power was expressed in traditional republican forms: he had the powers of a dictator (and from the age of 44 - for life), consular power (from 47 - for five , and from 44 - for ten years), the permanent power of the tribune, etc. In 44, he received lifelong censorship, and all his orders were approved in advance by the Senate and the People's Assembly. Having concentrated all power in his hands, Caesar became practically a monarch, while at the same time maintaining the Roman republican forms of government. A conspiracy (more than 80 people) was organized against Caesar, led by G. Cassius and M. Yu. Brutus, and on the Ides of March, during a meeting of the Senate, he was killed.

Caesar's literary legacy compose "Notes on the Gallic War" and "Notes on Civil Wars", which are the most valuable military-historical and ethnographic source. In addition, collections of Caesar's speeches and letters, two pamphlets, a number of poetic works, and a treatise on grammar are known (unfortunately, lost). Until the 19th century, military leaders learned the art of war from Caesar, and A.V. Suvorov and Napoleon considered knowledge of the works of the ancient Roman commander mandatory for every officer.

The literary heritage of Publius Ovid Naso (March 20, 43 BC, Sulmo - 17 or 18 AD, Tomis). An ancient Roman poet who worked in many genres, but was most famous for his love elegies and two poems - “Metamorphoses” and “The Art of Love”. Due to the discrepancy between the ideals of love he promoted and the official policy of Emperor Augustus regarding family and marriage, he was exiled from Rome to the western Black Sea region, where he spent the last ten years of his life.

Ovid's first literary experiments, with the exception of those which he, in his own words, set on fire “for correction,” were "Heroids"(Heroides) and love elegies. The brightness of Ovid's poetic talent is also expressed in the "Heroids", but he attracted the greatest attention of Roman society to himself with love elegies, published under the title "Amores", first in five books, but subsequently, after excluding many works by the poet himself, who compiled the three books that have come down to us from 49 poems. These love elegies, the content of which to one degree or another may be based on love adventures experienced by the poet personally, are associated with the fictitious name of his girlfriend, Corinna, which thundered throughout

The reference to the shores of the Black Sea gave rise to a whole series of works caused exclusively by the new position of the poet. The immediate result was his "Sorrowful Elegies" or simply "Sorrow"(Tristia), which he began to write while on the road and continued to write at the place of exile for three years, depicting his sad situation, complaining about fate and trying to persuade Augustus to pardon. These elegies, which fully correspond to their title, were published in five books and are addressed mainly to his wife, some to his daughter and friends, and one of them, the largest, which makes up the second book, to Augustus. This elegy cites a whole series of Greek and Roman poets, on whom the voluptuous content of their poems did not incur any punishment; It also points to Roman mimic performances, the extreme obscenity of which really served as a school of debauchery for the entire mass of the population.

The Mournful Elegies were followed by the Pontic Letters (Ex Ponto), in four books. The content of these letters addressed to Albinovan and other persons is essentially the same as the elegies, with the only difference being that, compared with the latter, the “Letters” reveal a noticeable decline in the poet’s talent.

"Metamorphoses" ("Transformations"), a huge poetic work in 15 books, containing an exposition of myths related to transformations, Greek and Roman, from the chaotic state of the universe to the transformation of Julius Caesar into a star. “Metamorphoses” is Ovid’s most important work, in which the rich content, delivered to the poet mainly by Greek myths, is processed with such power of inexhaustible imagination, with such freshness of colors, with such ease of transition from one subject to another, not to mention the brilliance of verse and poetic turns, which cannot but be recognized in all this work as a true triumph of talent, causing amazement.

Another serious and also large not only in volume, but also in significance, work of Ovid is represented by “Fasti” - a calendar containing an explanation of the holidays or holy days of Rome. This learned poem, which provides a lot of data and explanations related to the Roman cult and therefore serves as an important source for the study of Roman religion, has reached us in only 6 books covering the first half of the year. These are the books that Ovid managed to write and process in Rome. He could not continue this work in exile due to a lack of sources, although there is no doubt that he subjected what he wrote in Rome to some alteration in the Volumes: this is clearly indicated by the inclusion there of facts that occurred after the poet’s exile and even after the death of Augustus, such as for example. the triumph of Germanicus, dating back to 16. In poetic and literary terms, the Fasti are far inferior to the Metamorphoses, which is easily explained by the dryness of the plot, from which only Ovid could make a poetic work; in the verse one can feel the hand of a master, familiar to us from other works of the gifted poet.

The literary heritage of Quintus Horace Flaccus. Quintus Horace Flaccus(December 8, 65 BC, Venusia - November 27, 8 BC, Rome) - ancient Roman poet of the “golden age” of Roman literature. His work dates back to the era of civil wars at the end of the Republic and the first decades of the new regime of Octavian Augustus.

Horace's poetic path began precisely with the publication of "Satires", the first book of which was published between 35 and 33 years, and the second - in the 30th year.

Satires Horace sought to impart a more integral character than that of his predecessors, not only in poetic meter, forever assigning them the dactylic hexameter, but also in content.
The most significant innovation introduced by Horace into his satires is that their author, studying and showing real life and people, uses ridicule and benevolent jokes in every possible way. His artistic principle, stated in the initial satire, is “laughing to tell the truth,” that is, through laughter to lead to knowledge. To make his reader more receptive to criticism, Horace often conceives of satire as a friendly dialogue between the reader and himself. This one is tormented by stinginess, that one is tormented by ambition.

Horace calls his satires “Conversations” and subsequently defines them as “conversations in the style of Bion.” Indeed, some of the satires of the first book (1,2,3) are structured as discussions on moral and philosophical topics - about dissatisfaction with fate and greed, about treating friends, etc.
Some poems even have the character of mimic scenes in narrative form; such, for example, is a lively and dynamic meeting with a chatterbox, a weasel who wants to ingratiate himself into the environment of the Patron.

First epodes were created at a time when twenty-three-year-old Horace had just returned to Rome after the Battle of Philippi in 42 BC. e.; they “breathe the heat of the civil war that has not yet cooled down.” Others were created shortly before publication, at the end of the war between Octavian and Antony, on the eve of the Battle of Actium in 31 BC. e. and immediately after it. The collection also contains “youthfully ardent lines” addressed to the poet’s enemies and “elderly beauties” seeking “young love.”

Already in the Epodes the wide metric horizon of Horace is visible; but so far, unlike the lyrical odes, the meters of the epods are not logaedic, and go back not to the refined Aeolians Sappho and Alcaeus, but to the “straightforward” hot Archilochus. The first ten epodes are written in pure iambic; in Epodes XI to XVI, multi-partite meters are combined - tripartite dactylic (hexameter) and bipartite iambic (iambic meter); Epode XVII consists of pure iambic trimeters.

Epodes XI, XIII, XIV, XV form a special group: there is no politics, no causticity, ridicule, or evil sarcasm characteristic of iambiography. They are distinguished by a special mood - Horace is clearly trying his hand at “pure lyricism”, and the epics are no longer written in pure iambic, but in quasi-logaedic verse. In the “love” Epodes XIV and XV, Horace already departs far from the lyrics of Archilochus. In terms of ardor and passion, Archilochus is closer to the lyrics of Catullus, the range of experiences and doubts of which is more complex and much more “disheveled” than that of Horace. Horace’s lyrics reveal a different feeling (one might say, more Roman) - restrained, non-superficial, felt equally “with the mind and the heart” - consistent with the polished, dispassionately elegant image of his poetry as a whole.

The short “Epodes,” strong and sonorous, full of fire and youthful ardor, contain a clear vision of the world, accessible to a true genius. We find here an extraordinary palette of images, thoughts and feelings, cast in a minted form, which was generally fresh and unusual for Latin poetry. The epics still lack that crystal clear sound, unique laconicism and thoughtful depth that will distinguish the best odes of Horace. But already with this small book of poems, Horace introduced himself as a “star of the first magnitude” in the literary firmament of Rome.

Odes are distinguished by a high style, which is absent in the epics and which he refuses in the satires. Reproducing the metrical structure and general stylistic tone of the Aeolian lyric, Horace in all other respects follows his own path. As in the epics, he uses the artistic experience of different periods and often echoes Hellenistic poetry. The ancient Greek form serves as vestment for the Hellenistic-Roman content.

A special place is occupied by the so-called. “Roman Odes” (III, 1-6), in which Horace’s attitude to the ideological program of Augustus is most fully expressed. The odes are connected by a common theme and a single poetic meter (Horace's favorite Alcaeus stanza). The program of the “Roman Odes” is as follows: the sins of the fathers, committed by them during civil wars and like a curse weighing on their children, will be redeemed only by the return of the Romans to the ancient simplicity of morals and ancient veneration of the gods. The Roman Odes reflect the state of Roman society, which had entered the decisive stage of Hellenization, which gave the culture of the Empire a clear Greco-Roman character.

In general, the odes carry out the same morality of moderation and quietism. In the famous 30 Ode of the third book, Horace promises himself immortality as a poet; The ode gave rise to numerous imitations, of which the most famous are those of Derzhavin and Pushkin).

In form, content, artistic techniques and variety of topics "Messages" become closer to the “Satires”, with which Horace’s poetic career begins. Horace himself points out the connection between the epistles and satyrs, calling them, as before “Satires,” “conversations” (“sermones”); in them, as before in satires, Horace uses dactylic hexameter. Commentators of all periods consider the Epistles to be a significant advance in the art of depicting the inner life of man; Horace himself did not even classify them as poetry proper.

A special place is occupied by the famous “Epistle to the Pisons” (“Epistola ad Pisones”), later called “Ars poëtica”. Message belongs to the type of “normative” poetics containing “dogmatic prescriptions” from the standpoint of a certain literary movement. The message sounds a warning to Augustus, who intended to revive the ancient theater as an art of the masses and use it for political propaganda purposes. Horace believes that the princeps should not cater to the coarse tastes and whims of the uneducated public.

In the 17th century, the “centennial games”, a celebration of the “renewal of the century”, which was supposed to mark the end of the period of civil wars and the beginning of a new era of prosperity for Rome, were celebrated with unprecedented solemnity. It was supposed to be a complex, carefully designed ceremony, which, according to the official announcement, “no one has ever seen and will never see again” and in which the noblest people of Rome were supposed to take part. It was ending anthem, summing up the whole celebration. The hymn was entrusted to Horace. For the poet, this was state recognition of the leading position he occupied in Roman literature. Horace accepted the assignment and resolved this issue by turning the formulas of cult poetry into the glory of living nature and a manifesto of Roman patriotism. The solemn “Anniversary Hymn” was performed in the Temple of Apollo Palatine by a choir of 27 boys and 27 girls on June 3, 17 BC. e.

7. “Golden Age” of Roman literature. Publius Veriglius Maro, artistic features of his “Aeneid”

Golden Age of Roman Literature- the era of Augustus; in the history of literature, it is customary to call this not the reign of the first Roman emperor (31 BC - 14 AD), but the period from the death of Cicero (43 BC) to the death of Ovid ( 17 or 18 AD). The main experience of Virgil, Horace and other writers of this generation was the horrors of civil wars, after which the restoration of peace under Augustus seemed a real miracle. The republic was also restored, but only as a cover for the sole rule of the emperor. It was poetry that was best able to tell both about the miraculous salvation of the Romans and about the unofficial autocracy established in the country.

In the era of Augustus, Roman literature transformed into an integral system, deliberately built by analogy with Greek. Titus Livia and Horace create what was to become and became a classic of Roman historiography and lyric poetry. The recently deceased Cicero is recognized as a classic of oratory. Roman literature finally acquires - while maintaining all connections with classical and modern Greek literature - independence. The era of Augustus serves as a reference point for the next generations of Roman writers - the “Augustus” classics are imitated, parodied, repelled from, and returned to earlier authors over their heads. After the victory of Christianity (from 313 this religion was officially allowed in Rome, and from 380 it was recognized as the only state religion) and the death of the empire, Roman literature became the main guardian of all ancient culture in Europe. Latin was the common language of medieval and Renaissance Europe. Classical texts written in Latin (primarily Virgil) formed the basis of school education.

Publius Veriglius Maro one of the most significant ancient Roman poets. Created a new type of epic poem. Legend has it that a poplar branch, traditionally planted in honor of a newborn child, grew rapidly and soon became as big as the other poplars; this promised the baby special luck and happiness; subsequently the “tree of Virgil” was revered as sacred.

"Aeneid"- Virgil's unfinished patriotic epic, consists of 12 books written between 29-19. After Virgil's death, the Aeneid was published by his friends Varius and Plotius without any changes, but with some abbreviations. In all likelihood, the Aeneid was designed, like the Iliad, for 24 songs; The 12th ends only with the victory over Turnus, while the poet wanted to talk about the hero’s very settlement in Latium and his death.

Virgil took up this subject at the request of Augustus in order to arouse national pride in the Romans with tales of the great destinies of their ancestors and, on the other hand, to protect the dynastic interests of Augustus, supposedly a descendant of Aeneas through his son Julius, or Ascanius. Virgil in the Aeneid closely aligns himself with Homer; in the Iliad, Aeneas is the hero of the future. The poem begins with the last part of Aeneas’s wanderings, his stay in Carthage, and then episodically tells the previous events, the destruction of Ilion (II paragraph), Aeneas’s wanderings after that (III paragraph), arrival in Carthage (I and IV paragraphs), travel through Sicily (V p.) to Italy (VI p.), where a new series of adventures of a romantic and warlike nature begins. The very execution of the plot suffers from a common shortcoming of Virgil's works - the lack of original creativity and strong characters. The hero, “pious Aeneas” (pius Aeneas), is especially unsuccessful, deprived of any initiative, controlled by fate and the decisions of the gods, who patronize him as the founder of a noble family and the executor of the divine mission - transferring Lar to a new homeland. In addition, the Aeneid bears the imprint of artificiality; in contrast to the Homeric epic, which came out of the people, the Aeneid was created in the mind of the poet, without connections with folk life and beliefs; Greek elements are confused with Italic ones, mythical tales with history, and the reader constantly feels that the mythical world serves only as a poetic expression of the national idea. But Virgil used all the power of his verse to decorate psychological and purely poetic episodes, which constitute the immortal glory of the epic. Virgil is inimitable in his descriptions of tender shades of feelings. One has only to remember the pathetic, despite its simplicity, description of the friendship of Nisus and Erial, the love and suffering of Dido, the meeting of Aeneas with Dido in hell, in order to forgive the poet for his unsuccessful attempt to exalt the glory of Augustus at the expense of ancient legends. Of the 12 songs of the Aeneid, the sixth, which describes Aeneas’s descent into hell to see his father (Anchises), is considered the most remarkable in terms of philosophical depth and patriotic feeling. In it, the poet expounds the Pythagorean and Platonic doctrine of the “soul of the universe” and remembers all the great people of Rome. The external structure of this song is taken from paragraph XI of the Odyssey. In other songs, borrowings from Homer are also quite numerous.

In the construction of the Aeneid, the desire to create a Roman parallel to the poems of Homer is emphasized. Virgil found most of the motifs of the Aeneid in previous adaptations of the legend about Aeneas, but their choice and arrangement belong to Virgil himself and are subordinated to his poetic task. Not only in the general structure, but also in a whole series of plot details and in stylistic treatment (comparisons, metaphors, epithets, etc.) Virgil’s desire to “compete” with Homer is revealed.

The more profound differences become clearer. “Epic calm”, loving drawing out of details are alien to Virgil. The Aeneid presents a chain of narratives, full of dramatic movement, strictly concentrated, pathetically intense; the links of this chain are connected by skillful transitions and a common sense of purpose that creates the unity of the poem.

Its driving force is the will of fate, which leads Aeneas to the founding of a new kingdom in the Latin land, and the descendants of Aeneas to power over the world. The Aeneid is full of oracles, prophetic dreams, miracles and signs, guiding every action of Aeneas and foreshadowing the future greatness of the Roman people and the exploits of its leaders right up to Augustus himself.

Virgil avoids crowd scenes, usually highlighting several figures whose emotional experiences create dramatic movement. The drama is enhanced by stylistic treatment: Virgil is able to give the erased formulas of everyday speech greater expressiveness and emotional coloring through his masterful selection and arrangement of words.

In his depiction of gods and heroes, Virgil carefully avoids the rude and comic, which so often occurs in Homer, and strives for “noble” affects. In the clear division of the whole into parts and in the dramatization of parts, Virgil finds the middle path he needs between Homer and the “neoterics” and creates a new technique of epic storytelling, which for centuries served as a model for subsequent poets.

True, Virgil’s heroes are autonomous, they live outside the environment and are puppets in the hands of fate, but this was the life perception of the dispersed society of the Hellenistic monarchies and the Roman Empire. Virgil's main character, the “pious” Aeneas, with his peculiar passivity in voluntary submission to fate, embodies the ideal of stoicism, which has become almost an official ideology. And the poet himself acts as a preacher of Stoic ideas: the picture of the underworld in Canto 6, with the torment of sinners and the bliss of the righteous, is drawn in accordance with the ideas of the Stoics. The Aeneid was only finished in rough form. But even in this “draft” form, the Aeneid is distinguished by its high perfection of verse, deepening the reform begun in the Bucolics.

The main directions and genres of literature of the European Middle Ages. Folk epic literature of the early Middle Ages. Poetry of the Vagants

Medieval literature- a period in the history of European literature that begins in late antiquity (IV-V centuries) and ends in the 15th century. The earliest works that had the greatest influence on subsequent medieval literature were the Christian Gospels (1st century), the religious hymns of Ambrose of Milan (340-397), the works of Augustine the Blessed (“Confession”, 400; “On the City of God”, 410-428). ), translation of the Bible into Latin by Jerome (before 410) and other works of the Latin Church Fathers and early scholastic philosophers.

The origin and development of literature of the Middle Ages is determined by three main factors: the traditions of folk art, the cultural influence of the ancient world and Christianity.

Medieval art reached its culmination in the XII-XIII centuries. At this time, his most important achievements were Gothic architecture (Notre Dame Cathedral), chivalric literature, and heroic epic. The extinction of medieval culture and its transition to a qualitatively new stage - the Renaissance (Renaissance) - took place in Italy in the 14th century, in other countries of Western Europe - in the 15th century. This transition was carried out through the so-called literature of the medieval city, which in aesthetic terms has a completely medieval character and experienced its heyday in the XIV-XV and XVI centuries.

Genres of literature. The emergence of written prose marked a profound shift in tradition. This shift can be considered the boundary between the archaic era and the New Time.

Until the end of the 12th century, only legal documents were written in prose in vernacular languages. All “fiction” literature is poetic, which is associated with performance to music. Starting from the middle of the 12th century, the octosyllabic, assigned to narrative genres, gradually became autonomous from the melody and began to be perceived as a poetic convention. Baudouin VIII orders the chronicle of the pseudo-Turpin to be translated into prose for him, and the first works written or dictated in prose are the chronicles and “Memoirs” of Villehardouin and Robert de Clary. The novel immediately seized on the prose.

However, verse has by no means faded into the background in all genres. Throughout the XIII-XIV centuries, prose remained a relatively marginal phenomenon. In the XIV-XV centuries, a mixture of poetry and prose is often found - from Machaut’s “True Story” to Jean Marot’s “Textbook of Princesses and Noble Ladies.”

In the lyrics of Walter von der Vogelweide and Dante Alighieri, the greatest lyric poets of the Middle Ages, we find a fully formed new poetry. The vocabulary has been completely updated. Thought was enriched with abstract concepts. Poetic comparisons refer us not to the everyday, as in Homer, but to the meaning of the infinite, ideal, “romantic.” Although the abstract does not absorb the real, and in the knightly epic the element of low reality is revealed quite expressively (Tristan and Isolde), a new technique is discovered: reality finds its hidden content.

Folk epic literature of the early Middle Ages. Medieval civilization in the first centuries of its existence largely belonged to the repeatedly described type of culture with an oral dominant. Even when in the 12th and especially in the 13th centuries this feature began to gradually disappear, poetic forms still bore its imprint. The text was addressed to a public raised on fine arts and rituals - on glance and gesture; the voice created a third dimension of this space in a practically illiterate society. The method of circulation of a poetic product presupposed the presence of two factors in it: on the one hand, sound (singing or simply voice modulations), and on the other, gesture and facial expressions.

The epic was sung or recited; lyrical inserts found in a number of novels were intended for singing; Music played some role in the theater.

The separation of poetry from music was completed by the end of the 14th century, and in 1392 this gap was recorded by Eustache Deschamps in his Art de dictier(“Poetic art” - dictier here refers to the rhetorical operation, from lat. dictari): he distinguishes between the “natural” music of poetic language and the “artificial” music of instruments and singing.

Folk epic literature embodied mythological ideas and the concept of the historical past, ethical ideals and collectivist (mainly tribal) pathos. Moreover, in the earliest, archaic monuments, the mythological worldview dominates and is only gradually replaced by historical ideas (and images). Folk epic literature, which arose during the period of decomposition of the primitive communal system, reflected the formation of class society among young peoples who had just appeared on the European stage. There was a transition from ancient heroic tales, from legends about heroic ancestors to heroic legends about tribal clashes and then to epic tales with a broad historical background and a complex set of social ideas, which reflected the diverse processes of ethnic (and then political) consolidation. During the Early Middle Ages, this transformation of epic traditions was just beginning; it was fully realized only during the High Middle Ages, i.e. not earlier than the 11th century.

The origins of folk epic tales of the young peoples of Europe go back to the prehistoric phase of their evolution. Along with their adoption of Christianity, contacts emerged between folk oral literature and written Latin literature. Gradually, the latter begins to include individual motifs and images of folklore, significantly enriching it. Thus, among the monuments of Latin literature, works colored by national characteristics begin to appear.

If at the dawn of the Middle Ages artistic literature was represented only by Latin literature and the emerging folk heroic epic, then from the 8th century written monuments began to appear in new languages. Initially, these monuments were of a specifically applied nature. These were grammatical reference books and dictionaries, all kinds of legal and diplomatic documents. The latter include, for example, the so-called “Strasbourg Oaths” - one of the first monuments of the French and German languages ​​(842). This was an agreement between Charles the Bald and Louis the German, with the French king swearing the oath in German, and the German king in French.

Poetry of the Vagants.Vagantas(from lat. clerici vagantes- wandering clerics) - “wandering people” in the Middle Ages (XI-XIV centuries) in Western Europe, capable of writing and performing songs or, less often, prose works.

In the wide use of the word, the concept of vagants will include such socially heterogeneous and undefined groups as French jugglers (jongleur, jogleor - from the Latin joculator - “joker”), German spielmans (Spielman), English minstrels (minstral - from the Latin ministerialis - “servant” ) etc.

Vagants use in their satire elements of religious literature - they parody its basic forms (vision, hymn, sequence, etc.), going so far as to parody the liturgy and the Gospel.

Poetry vagants has reached us in several handwritten collections
XII - XIII centuries. - Latin and German; the main one containing more
two hundred songs and poems of various nature - moral teaching
esky, satirical, love - “Carmina Burana” (Beiren songs
from the Latinized name of the monastery Benedict Beiren, where it was first
This manuscript was found in the 13th century). Most of the poems in this
collection, as well as the texts of other manuscripts of Cambridge, Oxford
skaya, Watpkapskaya and others, named after their location in those
or other libraries, belongs to unknown poets.

The creativity of vagants is anonymous. Among the famous names: Gautier from Lille - aka Walter of Chatillon (second half of the 12th century), who wrote “Contra ecclesiasticos juxta visionem apocalypsis”; Primate of Orleans (early 12th century); a German vagant, known by his nickname “Archipoeta” (second half of the 12th century) and some others.

Drama as a type of literature; origin, role of ritual songs in honor of the god Dionysus in the formation of drama; main types of ancient Greek drama (tragedy, comedy, satyr drama). Aristotle on the origin and development of drama. The mythological basis of tragedy, the structure of tragedy and the role of choral parts. Organization of theatrical performances in Athens, construction of the theater. The structure of tragedy, the principle of trilogy.

The main stages of the Greco-Persian wars; social changes in the Greek polis.

Aeschylus(525 – 456 BC) – “father of tragedy.” The artistic significance of Aeschylus's introduction of the second actor. Aeschylus, his worldview and creative heritage (the problem of hereditary guilt and personal responsibility of the individual in the work of Aeschylus, the understanding of suffering as a punishment for pride, the attitude of the modern playwright to political and social issues. The development of Aeschylus’ tragedy from “The Entreaties” to “The Oresteia.” The tragedy “Prometheus” Chained" as part of the trilogy and a monument to the archaism of the genre; the functions of choral parts in the tragedy; comparison of the images of Prometheus in Hesiod and Aeschylus.

"Oresteia" as an example of a dramatic trilogy. Images of Agamemnon, Clytemnestra, Cassandra. The image of Orestes as an involuntary avenger. Erinnyes as a rudiment of maternal right. Ideological significance of the image of the Areopagus; affirmation of the values ​​of peace and mercy in the trilogy.

The language and artistic originality of Aeschylus’s tragedies: the monumentality of conflicts (maternal and paternal rights; man as part of the clan; man and fate; democracy and autocracy; static images).

Ancient criticism about the strengths and weaknesses of Aeschylus's dramaturgy.

Sophocles(496 – 406 BC). Social changes in Athenian society after the end of the Greco-Persian wars, government structure and features of Athenian democracy. “The Age of Pericles” as the heyday of the Athenian state. Science, art, architecture, education in Athens; social and artistic ideals; the main representatives of scientific and social thought: Empedocles, Anaxagoras (500 - 428), Hippocrates (460 - 370), Protagoras (480 - 411). The beginning of oratory, the first sophistry. Social changes during the Peloponnesian War (431 - 404).

Sophocles and his contribution to the formation of Greek drama. Reflection of his polis ideology in the tragedies of the Theban cycle “Oedipus the King”, “Oedipus at Colonus”, “Antigone” (manifestation of the divine will in the natural course of things, the conflict of “written” and “unwritten” laws, the opposition between Antigone and Creon, the greatness and powerlessness of man ). The normativity of heroes and principles of social behavior, images of Sophocles’ tragedies. The skill of Sophocles the playwright, the art of peripeteia. Aristotle on Oedipus as a “model tragic hero.” The role of the chorus, language and style of Sophocles' tragedies.

Euripides(480 - 406 BC) - “philosopher on stage.” Ideas of the Sophists in the tragedies of Euripides (a new look at traditional religion, morality, marriage and family, the position of women, attitude towards slaves). The poet's interest in psychology, especially women's. Problems of the tragedies “Medea” and “Hippolytus”. Deheroization of mythological characters in the image of Jason; depiction of people “as they really are”; The image of Medea as an artistic embodiment of the thesis “Man is the measure of all things.” People and gods in the tragedy "Hippolytus"; means of creating dramatic images of Phaedra and Hippolytus. The role of monologues and stichomythia.

Female images in Euripides (“Alcestis”, “Iphigenia in Aulis”). New interpretation of old stories (“Electra”). Breaking genre stereotypes in the tragedies “Ion” and “Elena”. Dramatic innovations and the influence of Euripides on the further development of ancient drama (tragedy of strong passions, everyday drama). Psychologism of Euripides' tragedies; reduction of the role of the choir, artificial completion of the “god ex machina” action; free handling of myth and a critical attitude towards the gods. The legacy of Euripides in the European cultural tradition.

Ancient Greek comedy; stages of development and main representatives: Aristophanes, Menander

The origin of comedy. Stages of development and structure of comedy. Ancient Attic comedy and its folklore and ritual origins. The originality of the genre, the conservatism of the form, the political orientation and topicality of the content. Political and accusatory orientation of comedies, freedom of invective. Comic techniques: hyperbole, materialized metaphor, caricature, grotesque. Composition of comedy, role of agon and parabass.

Aristophanes(c. 446 - c. 388 BC) - “father of comedy.” The work of Aristophanes, the problems of his comedies: a reflection of the crisis state of Athenian democracy; issues of war and peace (“Acharnians”, “The World”, “Lysistrata”), modern politics (“Riders”, “Wasps”), philosophy, education (“Clouds”) and literature (“Frogs”, “Women at the Thesmophoria” ). Aesthetic views of Aristophanes in the comedy “Frogs”; Aristophanes' assessment of the heritage of Aeschylus and Euripides; socio-political and aesthetic ideals of Aristophanes.

Elements of fantasy and utopia (“Birds”, “Women in the National Assembly”, “Plutos”). The language of comedy and the meaning of Aristophanes' work.

Middle Attic comedy. The new Attic comedy as an everyday, love, family comedy, its difference from the ancient one. Influence of Euripides. Typical subjects and masks. Creation Menander(c. 342 – 292 BC), the preservation of his comedies. Humane and philanthropic views of Menander. Problems of the comedies “Arbitration Court” and “Grumbly”. The innovation of Menander and the theater of modern times.

Historical, philosophical and oratorical prose: Herodotus,

Tragedy. The tragedy comes from ritual actions in honor of Dionysus. Participants in these actions wore masks with goat beards and horns, depicting Dionysus' companions - satyrs. Ritual performances took place during the Great and Lesser Dionysias. Songs in honor of Dionysus were called dithyrambs in Greece. The dithyramb, as Aristotle points out, is the basis of Greek tragedy, which at first retained all the features of the myth of Dionysus. The first tragedies set forth myths about Dionysus: about his suffering, death, resurrection, struggle and victory over his enemies. But then poets began to draw content for their works from other legends. In this regard, the choir began to portray not satyrs, but other mythical creatures or people, depending on the content of the play.

Origin and essence. The tragedy arose from solemn chants. She retained their majesty and seriousness; her heroes became strong personalities, endowed with a strong-willed character and great passions. Greek tragedy always depicted some particularly difficult moments in the life of an entire state or an individual, terrible Crimes, misfortunes and deep moral suffering. There was no place for jokes or laughter.

System. The tragedy begins with a (declamatory) prologue, followed by the entrance of the choir with a song (parod), then episodies (episodes), which are interrupted by the songs of the choir (stasims), the last part is the final stasim (usually solved in the genre of commos) and departure actors and choir - exod. Choral songs divided the tragedy in this way into parts, which in modern drama are called acts. The number of parts varied even among the same author. The three unities of Greek tragedy: place, action and time (the action could only take place from sunrise to sunset), which were supposed to strengthen the illusion of the reality of the action. The unity of time and place significantly limited the development of dramatic elements at the expense of epic ones, characteristic of the evolution of the genus. A number of events necessary in the drama, the depiction of which would violate unity, could only be reported to the viewer. The so-called “messengers” told about what was happening off stage.

Greek tragedy was greatly influenced by Homeric epic. Tragedians borrowed a lot of legends from him. The characters often used expressions borrowed from the Iliad. For dialogues and songs of the choir, playwrights (they are also melurgists, since the poems and music were written by the same person - the author of the tragedy) used iambic trimeter as a form close to living speech (for the differences in dialects in certain parts of the tragedy, see the ancient Greek language ). The tragedy reached its greatest flowering in the 5th century. BC e. in the works of three Athenian poets: Sophocles and Euripides.

Sophocles In Sophocles' tragedies, the main thing is not the external course of events, but the internal torment of the heroes. Sophocles usually explains the general meaning of the plot right away. The external outcome of his plot is almost always easy to predict. Sophocles carefully avoids complicated complications and surprises. His main feature is his tendency to portray people with all their inherent weaknesses, hesitations, mistakes, and sometimes crimes. Sophocles' characters are not general abstract embodiments of certain vices, virtues or ideas. Each of them has a bright personality. Sophocles almost deprives the legendary heroes of their mythical superhumanity. The catastrophes that befall Sophocles' heroes are prepared by the properties of their characters and circumstances, but they are always retribution for the guilt of the hero himself, as in Ajax, or his ancestors, as in Oedipus the King and Antigone. In accordance with the Athenian penchant for dialectics, Sophocles' tragedies develop in a verbal competition between two opponents. It helps the viewer become more aware of whether they are right or wrong. In Sophocles, verbal discussions are not the center of dramas. Scenes filled with deep pathos and at the same time devoid of Euripidean pomposity and rhetoric are found in all the tragedies of Sophocles that have come down to us. Sophocles' heroes experience severe mental anguish, but the positive characters even in them retain full consciousness of their rightness.

« Antigone" (about 442). The plot of "Antigone" belongs to the Theban cycle and is a direct continuation of the tale of the war of the "Seven against Thebes" and the duel between Eteocles and Polyneices. After the death of both brothers, the new ruler of Thebes, Creon, buried Eteocles with due honors, and forbade the body of Polyneices, who went to war against Thebes, to be buried, threatening the disobedient with death. The sister of the victims, Antigone, violated the ban and buried the politician. Sophocles developed this plot from the angle of the conflict between human laws and the “unwritten laws” of religion and morality. The question was relevant: defenders of polis traditions considered “unwritten laws” to be “divinely established” and inviolable, in contrast to the changeable laws of people. Conservative in religious matters, Athenian democracy also demanded respect for “unwritten laws.” The prologue to Antigone also contains another feature that is very common in Sophocles - the opposition of harsh and soft characters: the adamant Antigone is contrasted with the timid Ismene, who sympathizes with her sister, but does not dare to act with her. Antigone puts her plan into action; she covers Polyneices’ body with a thin layer of earth, that is, she performs a symbolic “” burial, which, according to Greek ideas, was sufficient to calm the soul of the deceased. The interpretation of Sophocles' Antigone remained for many years in the direction laid down by Hegel; it is still adhered to by many reputable researchers3. As is known, Hegel saw in Antigone an irreconcilable clash between the idea of ​​statehood and the demand that blood-related ties place on a person: Antigone, who dares to bury her brother in defiance of the royal decree, dies in an unequal struggle with the principle of statehood, but the king Creon, who personifies him, also loses in this clash only son and wife, coming to the end of the tragedy broken and devastated. If Antigone is physically dead, then Creon is crushed morally and awaits death as a blessing (1306-1311). The sacrifices made by the Theban king on the altar of statehood are so significant (let’s not forget that Antigone is his niece) that sometimes he is considered the main hero of the tragedy, who supposedly defends the interests of the state with such reckless determination. It is worth, however, carefully reading the text of Sophocles’ “Antigone” and imagining how it sounded in the specific historical setting of ancient Athens in the late 40s of the 5th century BC. e., so that the interpretation of Hegel loses all the power of evidence.

Analysis of "Antigone" in connection with the specific historical situation in Athens in the 40s of the 5th century BC. e. shows the complete inapplicability of modern concepts of state and individual morality to this tragedy. In Antigone there is no conflict between state and divine law, because for Sophocles the true state law was built on the basis of the divine. In Antigone there is no conflict between the state and the family, because for Sophocles the duty of the state was to protect the natural rights of the family, and no Greek state prohibited citizens from burying their relatives. Antigone reveals the conflict between natural, divine and therefore truly state law and an individual who takes upon himself the courage to represent the state contrary to natural and divine law. Who has the upper hand in this clash? In any case, not Creon, despite the desire of a number of researchers to make him the true hero of the tragedy; Creon's final moral collapse testifies to his complete failure. But can we consider Antigone the winner, alone in unrequited heroism and ingloriously ending her life in a dark dungeon? Here we need to take a closer look at what place her image occupies in the tragedy and by what means it was created. In quantitative terms, Antigone's role is very small - only about two hundred verses, almost two times less than Creon's. In addition, the entire last third of the tragedy, leading the action to the denouement, occurs without her participation. With all this, Sophocles not only convinces the viewer that Antigone is right, but also instills in him deep sympathy for the girl and admiration for her dedication, inflexibility, and fearlessness in the face of death. Antigone's unusually sincere, deeply touching complaints occupy a very important place in the structure of the tragedy. First of all, they deprive her image of any touch of sacrificial asceticism that might arise from the first scenes where she so often confirms her readiness for death. Antigone appears before the viewer as a full-blooded, living person, to whom nothing human is alien either in thoughts or feelings. The more saturated the image of Antigone is with such sensations, the more impressive is her unshakable loyalty to her moral duty. Sophocles quite consciously and purposefully creates an atmosphere of imaginary loneliness around his heroine, because in such an environment her heroic nature is fully manifested. Of course, it was not in vain that Sophocles forced his heroine to die, despite her obvious moral rightness - he saw what a threat to Athenian democracy, which stimulated the comprehensive development of the individual, was at the same time fraught with the hypertrophied self-determination of this individual in her desire to subjugate the natural rights of man. However, not everything in these laws seemed completely explicable to Sophocles, and the best evidence of this is the problematic nature of human knowledge, already emerging in Antigone. Sophocles, in his famous “hymn to man,” ranked “thought as swift as the wind” (phronema) among the greatest achievements of the human race (353-355), joining his predecessor Aeschylus in assessing the capabilities of the mind. If Creon’s fall is not rooted in the unknowability of the world (his attitude towards the murdered Polyneices is in clear contradiction with generally known moral norms), then with Antigone the situation is more complicated. Like Yemena at the beginning of the tragedy, so subsequently Creon and the chorus consider her act a sign of recklessness22, and Antigone is aware that her behavior can be regarded in exactly this way (95, cf. 557). The essence of the problem is formulated in the couplet that ends Antigone’s first monologue: although her act seems stupid to Creon, it seems that the accusation of stupidity comes from a fool (469 ff.). The ending of the tragedy shows that Antigone was not mistaken: Creon pays for his foolishness, and we must give the girl’s feat the full measure of heroic “reasonableness,” since her behavior coincides with the objectively existing, eternal divine law. But since Antigone is awarded not glory but death for her fidelity to this law, she has to question the reasonableness of such an outcome. “What law of the gods did I break? - Antigone therefore asks. “Why should I, unfortunate one, still look to the gods, what allies should I call for help if, by acting piously, I have earned the accusation of impiety?” (921-924). “Look, elders of Thebes... what I endure - and from such a person! - although I revered heaven piously.” For the hero of Aeschylus, piety guaranteed final triumph, for Antigonus it leads to a shameful death; the subjective “reasonableness” of human behavior leads to an objectively tragic result - a contradiction arises between human and divine reason, the resolution of which is achieved at the cost of self-sacrifice of heroic individuality Euripides. (480 BC – 406 BC). Almost all of Euripides' surviving plays were created during the Peloponnesian War (431–404 BC) between Athens and Sparta, which had a huge influence on all aspects of life in ancient Hellas. And the first feature of Euripides’ tragedies is the burning modernity: heroic-patriotic motives, hostile attitude towards Sparta, the crisis of ancient slave-owning democracy, the first crisis of religious consciousness associated with the rapid development of materialist philosophy, etc. In this regard, Euripides’ attitude to mythology is especially indicative: myth becomes for the playwright only material for reflecting modern events; he allows himself to change not only minor details of classical mythology, but also to give unexpected rational interpretations of well-known plots (for example, in Iphigenia in Tauris, human sacrifices are explained by the cruel customs of the barbarians). The gods in the works of Euripides often appear more cruel, insidious and vengeful than people (Hippolytus, Hercules, etc.). It is precisely because of this that the “dues ex machina” (“God from the machine”) technique became so widespread in the dramaturgy of Euripides, when at the end of the work, God who suddenly appears hastily dispenses justice. In Euripides' interpretation, divine providence could hardly consciously care about the restoration of justice. However, the main innovation of Euripides, which caused rejection among most of his contemporaries, was the depiction of human characters. Euripides, as Aristotle noted in his Poetics, brought people onto the stage as they are in life. The heroes and especially the heroines of Euripides do not at all have integrity, their characters are complex and contradictory, and high feelings, passions, thoughts are closely intertwined with base ones. This gave the tragic characters of Euripides versatility, evoking a complex range of feelings in the audience - from empathy to horror. Expanding the palette of theatrical and visual means, he widely used everyday vocabulary; along with the choir, increased the volume of the so-called. monody (solo singing by an actor in a tragedy). Monodies were introduced into theatrical use by Sophocles, but the widespread use of this technique is associated with the name of Euripides. The clash of opposing positions of characters in the so-called. Euripides aggravated agons (verbal competitions of characters) through the use of stichomythia, i.e. exchange of poems between participants in the dialogue.

Medea. The image of a suffering person is the most characteristic feature of Euripides's work. Man himself contains forces that can plunge him into the abyss of suffering. Such a person is, in particular, Medea - the heroine of the tragedy of the same name, staged in 431. The sorceress Medea, the daughter of the Colchis king, fell in love with Jason, who arrived in Colchis, and provided him with invaluable help, teaching him to overcome all obstacles and get the Golden Fleece. She sacrificed her homeland, maiden honor, and good name to Jason; the more difficult Medea now experiences Jason’s desire to leave her with two sons after several years of happy family life and marry the daughter of the Corinthian king, who also orders Medea and the children to get out of his country. An insulted and abandoned woman is concocting a terrible plan: not only to destroy her rival, but also to kill her own children; this way she can take full revenge on Jason. The first half of this plan is carried out without much difficulty: having supposedly resigned herself to her situation, Medea, through her children, sends Jason’s bride an expensive outfit soaked in poison. The gift was favorably accepted, and now Medea faces the most difficult test - she must kill the children. The thirst for revenge fights in her with her maternal feelings, and she changes her decision four times until a messenger appears with a menacing message: the princess and her father died in terrible agony from poison, and a crowd of angry Corinthians is rushing to Medea’s house to deal with her and her children. . Now, when the boys are facing imminent death, Medea finally decides to commit a terrible crime. Before Jason returning in anger and despair, Medea appears on a magic chariot floating in the air; on the mother's lap are the corpses of the children she killed. The atmosphere of magic surrounding the ending of the tragedy and, to some extent, the appearance of Medea herself, cannot hide the deeply human content of her image. Unlike the heroes of Sophocles, who never deviate from the path once chosen, Medea is shown in repeated transitions from furious anger to pleas, from indignation to imaginary humility, in the struggle of conflicting feelings and thoughts. The deepest tragedy of the image of Medea is also given by sad reflections on the lot of a woman, whose position in the Athenian family was indeed unenviable: being under the vigilant supervision of first her parents and then her husband, she was doomed to remain a recluse in the female half of the house all her life. In addition, when getting married, no one asked the girl about her feelings: marriages were concluded by parents who were striving for a deal beneficial to both parties. Medea sees the deep injustice of this state of affairs, which places a woman at the mercy of a stranger, a person unfamiliar to her, who is often not inclined to burden himself too much with marriage ties.

Yes, between those who breathe and those who think, We women are none more unhappy. We pay for our husbands, and not cheaply. And if you buy it, then he is your master, not a slave... After all, a husband, when he is tired of the hearth, On the side with love his heart is soothed, They have friends and peers, but we have to look into our eyes hateful. The everyday atmosphere of Euripides's contemporary Athens also affected the image of Jason, which was far from any idealization. A selfish careerist, a student of the sophists, who knows how to turn any argument in his favor, he either justifies his treachery with references to the well-being of the children, for whom his marriage should provide civil rights in Corinth, or explains the help he once received from Medea by the omnipotence of Cypris. The unusual interpretation of the mythological legend and the internally contradictory image of Medea were assessed by Euripides' contemporaries in a completely different way than by subsequent generations of viewers and readers. The ancient aesthetics of the classical period assumed that in the struggle for the marital bed, an offended woman has the right to take the most extreme measures against her husband who cheated on her and her rival. But the revenge to which one’s own children become victims did not fit into aesthetic norms that required internal integrity from the tragic hero. Therefore, the famous “Medea” ended up only in third place during its first production, i.e., in essence, it was a failure.

17. Ancient geocultural space. Phases of development of ancient civilization Cattle breeding, agriculture, metal mining in mines, crafts, and trade developed intensively. The patriarchal tribal organization of society was disintegrating. The wealth inequality of families grew. The clan nobility, which had increased its wealth through the widespread use of slave labor, fought for power. Public life proceeded rapidly - in social conflicts, wars, unrest, political upheavals. Ancient culture throughout its existence remained in the embrace of mythology. However, the dynamics of social life, the complication of social relations, and the growth of knowledge undermined the archaic forms of mythological thinking. Having learned from the Phoenicians the art of alphabetical writing and improved it by introducing letters denoting vowel sounds, the Greeks were able to record and accumulate historical, geographical, astronomical information, collect observations regarding natural phenomena, technical inventions, morals and customs of people. The need to maintain public order in the state demanded the replacement of unwritten tribal norms of behavior enshrined in myths with logically clear and orderly codes of laws. Public political life stimulated the development of oratory skills, the ability to persuade people, contributing to the growth of a culture of thinking and speech. The improvement of production and handicraft labor, urban construction, and military art increasingly went beyond the scope of ritual and ceremonial models consecrated by myth. Signs of civilization: *separation of physical and mental labor; *writing; *the emergence of cities as centers of cultural and economic life. Features of civilization: -the presence of a center with the concentration of all spheres of life and their weakening on the periphery (when urban residents of small towns are called “villages”); -ethnic core (people) - in Ancient Rome - the Romans, in Ancient Greece - the Hellenes (Greeks); -formed ideological system (religion); -tendency to expand (geographically, culturally); cities; -a single information field with language and writing; -formation of external trade relations and zones of influence; -stages of development (growth - peak of prosperity - decline, death or transformation). Features of ancient civilization: 1) Agricultural basis. Mediterranean triad - growing grains, grapes and olives without artificial irrigation. 2) Private property relations, the dominance of private commodity production, oriented primarily to the market, emerged. 3) “polis” - “city-state”, covering the city itself and the territory adjacent to it. Polis were the first republics in the history of all mankind. The ancient form of land ownership dominated in the polis community; it was used by those who were members of the civil community. Under the policy system, hoarding was condemned. In most policies, the supreme body of power was the people's assembly. He had the right to make final decisions on the most important policy issues. The polis represented an almost complete coincidence of political structure, military organization and civil society. 4) In the field of development of material culture, the emergence of new technology and material values ​​was noted, crafts developed, sea harbors were built and new cities arose, and maritime transport was built. Periodization of ancient culture: 1) Homeric era (XI-IX centuries BC) The main form of public control is the “culture of shame” - the immediate condemning reaction of the people to the deviation of the hero’s behavior from the norm. Gods are regarded as part of nature; man, while worshiping the gods, can and should build relationships with them rationally. The Homeric era demonstrates competition (agon) as the norm of cultural creativity and lays the agonistic foundation of the entire European culture 2) Archaic era (VIII-VI centuries BC) The result of a new type of social relations is the law “nomos” as an impersonal legal norm, equally binding for everyone. A society is being formed in which every full-fledged citizen is an owner and politician, expressing private interests through the maintenance of public ones, and peaceful virtues are brought to the fore. The gods protect and support a new social and natural order (cosmos), in which relationships are regulated by the principles of cosmic compensation and measures and are subject to rational comprehension in various natural philosophical systems. 3) The Classical Age (5th century BC) - the rise of the Greek genius in all areas of culture - art, literature, philosophy and science. On the initiative of Pericles, the Parthenon, the famous temple in honor of Athena the Virgin, was erected in the center of Athens on the acropolis. Tragedies, comedies and satyr dramas were staged in the Athenian theater. The victory of the Greeks over the Persians, the awareness of the advantages of law over arbitrariness and despotism contributed to the formation of the idea of ​​​​man as an independent (autarkic) personality. The law acquires the character of a rational legal idea, subject to discussion. In the era of Pericles, social life serves the self-development of man. At the same time, the problems of human individualism began to be realized, and the problem of the unconscious was revealed to the Greeks. 4) Hellenistic era (IV century BC) examples of Greek culture spread throughout the world as a result of the aggressive campaigns of Alexander the Great. But at the same time, the ancient city policies lost their former independence. Ancient Rome took up the cultural baton. The main cultural achievements of Rome date back to the era of the empire, when the cult of practicality, state, and law dominated. The main virtues were politics, war, governance.