Introduction to Greek Tragedy PDF

KEY TO THE EXERCISES SEQUENCE 1 : AN INTRODUCTION TO GREEK TRAGEDY KEY TO EXERCISES I & II: VIDEO TRANSCRIPT: INTRODUCTION TO GREEK TRAGEDY. National Theatre London. Video documentary. CORE FUNCTION OF GREEK TRAGEDY Professor Edith Hall, Professor of Classics at Ki...

KEY TO THE EXERCISES SEQUENCE 1 : AN INTRODUCTION TO GREEK TRAGEDY KEY TO EXERCISES I & II: VIDEO TRANSCRIPT: INTRODUCTION TO GREEK TRAGEDY. National Theatre London. Video documentary. CORE FUNCTION OF GREEK TRAGEDY Professor Edith Hall, Professor of Classics at King's College, London: More than any art form I've had experience of, Greek tragedy does one particular thing and that is look suffering and human misery directly in the face. It can't stare it down, but it stares at it. No other art form is so unflinching about it.  Translation: Elle ne peut vaincre cette souffrance en la fixant1 du regard, mais elle ne la quitte pas des yeux. Aucune autre forme d’art ne le fait de manière aussi implacable. stare at sth : steFr to look for a long time with the eyes wide open, especially when surprised, frightened, or thinking (CD2) flinch : flqntH make a sudden, small movement because or pain or fear. (CD) => unflinching : yn)flqntHqC not frightened or not trying to avoid something unpleasant or painful. (CD) UNIVERSALITY OF GREEK TRAGEDY Dr Laura Swift, The Open University: I think part of the reasons Greek tragedy transcends cultural boundaries is because its themes are so universal. That even though it's set in a culture that is very different to our own, the basic themes still speak to us today because they are universal: we still have difficulties in our relationships, we still have to make painful decisions in our own lives and we still have to grapple with the unfairness in our own world and the fact that people seem to suffer when they don't seem to really deserve to.  Translation: … nous devons encore nous affronter aux injustices de notre monde et au fait que des gens semblent souffrir alors qu’ils ne semblent pas véritablement le mériter. Boundary: )baxndFrq => real or imagined line that marks the limit or edge of something (CD) Transcend : trAn)send to go further, rise above, or be more important or better than something, especially a limit (CD) Theme: Bi:m main subject of a talk, book, play, film, etc. (CD) deserve sth : dq)zE:v to have earned or to be given something because of the way you have behaved or the qualities you have (CD) grapple with sth : )grApFl try to deal with sth, try to understand a difficult problem, situation or subject (CD) 1 NB : ‘It can’t stare it down’ est une structure résultative : l’adverbe ‘down’ exprime ici le résultat de l’action décrite par le verbe ‘stare’. On ne peut donc traduire mot à mot sans perdre le sens : il faut transposer (= traduire une catégorie grammaticale par une autre) en traduisant l’adverbe ‘down’ et l’idée de renversement, de mise à terre, par un verbe => vaincre, abattre … 2 Cambridge Dictionary ARISTOTLE’S THEORY OF GREEK TRAGEDY Pr. E. Hall : The first really important study of Greek tragedy was by a fourth century Greek philosopher called Aristotle. And Aristotle thought for a very very long time about what made Greek tragedy effective and he came up with a formula and that is that the heroes of Greek tragedy needed to be good but not so good that you sort of couldn't relate to them – people trying to be good but, erm, making mistakes, like Creon; he is actually trying to be a good king of Thebes, he is just not getting it right, he is making lots of mistakes. Sean McEvoy, Vaurndian College, Brighton: Aristotle says that one of the key things that leads the tragedy is Hamartia, the error of judgement. And tragedy is about real people making bad decisions that lead to terrible results. Real people making bad decisions often for good reasons. So tragedy is about the idea that we live in a flawed world, full of suffering, full of injustice and misery. But it also shows us that those things are caused by our actions and are therefore remediable by our actions.  Translation: Donc la tragédie traite de l’idée selon laquelle nous vivons dans un monde imparfait … come up with sth : suggest or think of an idea or a plan. (CD) Flawed: flc:d not perfect, or containing mistakes, weaknesses. (CD) DEATH Pr E. Hall: Almost all the plays have someone die in the course of them and so what we watch is not only their reactions if they know it's going to happen and those of the people who are left behind. But even in the ones where people don't actually die, the main characters have a peculiarly intense relationship, they're usually held in the grip of the past somehow through their dialogue with the dead. Many characters in Greek tragedy who know they're about to die or fear they're about to die address the sun. One of the strongest metaphors for death for the ancient Greeks was I'm going to leave the light or I will never look upon the sun again, that means I will die, because they were consigned to this dark netherworld beneath the earth.  … ils sont habituellement prisonniers du passé, d’une certaine manière, à travers leur dialogue avec les morts. ... car ils étaient consignés à cet obscur monde souterrain3. To be left behind : be abandoned (here : remain alive). Peculiarly : pq)kju:lqFlq (here) very, especially (in other contexts: strangely) To look upon sth: direct one’s sight towards sth / s.o (in other contexts: consider sth/sbdy (as …)) Netherworld: )neDFwE:ld underworld; a place, situation, or part of society that is hidden and often unpleasant. (CD) Beneath : bq)ni:B below, under. 3 Netherworld = world beneath the earth => on traduit donc l’ensemble de cette expression redondante par : monde souterrain. STRUCTURE Dr. L. Swift : Greek tragedy is a very stylized genre and its structure is relatively fixed. It always starts with a prologue which sets the scene. After that then the chorus come on and sing an introductory ode which both comment on the previous scene but also allow for the passing of time. Erm, so a choral ode might only last five minutes but the audience can imagine that perhaps several hours have gone by and so something important off-stage can have happened during that time. Pr E. Hall: One of the real innovations made by the Greek tragedians in that time is the way they constructed their plots. What they learnt to do over that eighty years is make everything happen in their plays in less than the time between a sunrise and a sunset. So you get this very, very skilful writing that means you can unravel many many things that have led to this disaster and often much of the future if the god comes along and gives you some predictions, all concentrated into this tight action of a single day. That has had an unimaginable impact on the future of dramatic writing.  Translations: Ainsi, une ode chorale pourrait ne durer que cinq minutes mais les spectateurs peuvent alors imaginer que plusieurs heures ont peut-être passé et que quelque chose d’important a donc pu se produire dans l’extra-scène4 pendant ce laps de temps5.  On a donc cette écriture très, très ingénieuse qui permet aux auteurs de révéler un très grand nombre de choses qui ont mené à ce désastre et souvent une grande partie de l’avenir, si un dieu apparaît en faisant quelques prédictions, et tout cela concentré dans cette action resserrée sur l’espace d’une seule journée. A tragedian: trF)dGi:dqFn un auteur tragique ; un tragédien (acteur ou auteur tragique) Genre: ˈʒɑ̃ ːrə a style, especially in the arts, that involves a particular set of characteristics (CD) Stylized: )staqFlaqzd represented with an emphasis on a particular style and its particular set of characteristics. (CD) Prologue: )prFxlog a part that comes at the beginning of a play, story, or long poem, often giving information about events that happened before the time when the play, story, or poem begins. (OED6) Chorus: )kc:rFs (here) a group of actors in ancient Greek plays who explained or gave opinions on what was happening in the play using music, poetry, and dance ; in modern theatre: a group of performers who, as a team, sing or dance in a show (in other uses, a chorus can also be the part of a song that is repeated several times (refrain); it can also be a piece of music written for a choir.) (OED) An ode: Fxd poem or song Comment on sth: )komFnt on commenter qqch Previous : )pri:vqFs foregoing, preceding / coming or going before. To last: la:st continue to exist audience: )o:djFns spectators (or listeners at a concert) to go by: (here) pass (time, hours …) offstage (N, adj.): )ofsteqdG behind, or to the side of the stage, so that people who are watching cannot see (OED) (= l’extra-scène, le hors-scène / extra-scènique) 4 Ou : dans l’univers extra-scènique / dans le hors-scène (off-stage) 5 Ou : dans cet intervalle. 6 Oxford English Dictionary plot: plot selon les contextes: l’intrigue (pièce, roman ; NB => intrigue amoureuse : (love) affair) ; le complot. To plot sth : comploter ; composer l’intrigue (d’une pièce, roman …) (autre sens: plot of land => lopin de terre) skilful : )skqlfxl good at doing something, especially because you have practised doing it (OED) (habile, ingénieux, adroit …) unravel: yn)rAvFl a- (literal sense) (of woven cloth) to separate into threads, or to separate the fibers of a thread, rope, or cloth. Disentangle b- (figurative sense) make plain, disclose, reveal, solve (a mistery) (OED) INFLUENCE OF GREEK TRAGEDY Dr S. McEvoy: It's difficult to underestimate the impact of Greek theatre on the theatre that has developed in the years since really, especially since the Renaissance. Er, there are modern playwrights who deliberately attempt to use the structures of Greek tragedy – I mean most famously, I suppose, the American playwright Arthur Miller who sets out in Death of a Salesman to copy the structure of a Greek tragedian and follow it through. Pr E. Hall : In many ways, I think that the modern form of entertainment that uses the same kind of material as ancient Greek tragedy, rather astonishingly, is soap opera. The actual plots of soap opera, which are set very much in the community – you have the community reaction involved, these closed family dramas; we often have two brothers fighting, you very often have a tragic unexplained death, you have inappropriate sex – the affair is the absolute staple – you have powerful matriarchs, er, you have illegitimacy. So they carry on having their impact in, er, our most popular forms of entertainment.  Translations: Je pense que la forme de divertissement moderne qui utilise le même type d’éléments que la tragédie grecque antique, de manière plutôt surprenante, est le feuilleton sentimental.  … l’intrigue amoureuse est l’ingrédient de base absolu. a playwright )pleqrait = a dramatist )drAmFtqst = a person who writes plays (F: dramaturge) follow sth through: to do what needs to be done to complete something (OED) entertainment : (entF)teinmFnt public shows, performances, or other ways of enjoying yourself (OED) to entertain sbdy: a- divertir qqn b- recevoir qqn (soirée, dîner etc…) soap opera : )sFxp (opFra A radio or television serial dealing esp. with domestic situations and frequently characterized by melodrama and sentimentality; this type of serial considered as a genre (OED) (feuilleton sentimental) matriarch: )meitrqa:k A woman who is the head of a family, household, or tribe; a woman having the status corresponding to that of a patriarch; a venerable old woman. (OED) Affair: F)feFr (here) intrigue amoureuse Staple: )steipFl (here) chief component element of sth (OED) IMPACT AND AIM Dr S. McEvoy: Aristotle talks about a thing called catharsis which ….....is cleansing and purifying. And he says when we watch the end of a tragedy we feel pity and fear and these emotions get purged, they get cleansed in some sense. Dr L. Swift : What he probably means by that is the sense of emotional draining and that the experience of watching a play somehow purges you of all your emotions and that it's a cleansing process, so, er, a good experience, that you come out of it perhaps feeling drained. Pr E. Hall : I think anybody who has ever burst into tears at the end of a movie knows you can actually feel better for that if it gets in touch with some strong emotion in you about “Oh, I hope that doesn't happen to me” or “that poor woman”. Er, Weeping over it can actually, rather paradoxically, strengthen you. That's what catharsis is.  Translations: … on en sort en se sentant peut-être purgé7.  Pleurer pour cela peut, en réalité, et de manière assez paradoxale, redonner de la force. Catharsis: kF)Ba:sqs a- medicine: Purgation of the excrements of the body; esp. evacuation of the bowels. b- (figurative) (here) The purification of the emotions by vicarious8 experience, esp. through the drama (in reference to Aristotle's Poetics 6) c- psychotherapy: The process of relieving an abnormal excitement by re-establishing the association of the emotion with the memory or idea of the event which was the first cause of it, and of eliminating it by abreaction. (OED) => cf. A. Hitchcock’s Marnie (1964)  Adjective: cathartic => a cathartic experience, scene etc… Cleanse: klenz purify, purge. Drain: drein (here) To carry off, withdraw, take away as by a drain. (OED) Weep (wept, wept): wi:p (wept wept) cry, shed tears of sorrow or joy. => compare the near synonyms: weep / cry / sob (sob: To catch the breath in a convulsive manner as the result of violent emotion, esp. grief; to weep in this fashion. (= sangloter)) SOCIAL FUNCTION Dr S. McEvoy: Tragedy is about confronting suffering, death, mourning, loss, all of these things and what it does is it enables us to find reflections of our own lives and see that these feelings and ideas are shared, that these feelings and ideas are part of a community, they're part of a tradition.  Translation : La tragédie consiste à faire face à la souffrance, à la mort, au deuil, à la perte d’êtres chers, à toutes ces choses – et elle nous permet de voir nos propres vies en reflet et de constater que ces sentiments et ces idées sont partagés, qu’ils font partie d’une communauté, d’une tradition. Mourning : )mc:nqC lament, grief over somebody’s death. => to mourn sbdy’s death : mc:n To lament or grieve over a death. To enable sbdy to do sth : q)neibFl make sbdy able to do sth (permettre à qqn de faire qqch) Reflection: rq)flekHFn a- reflet, image reflétée b- réflexion 7 Ou : purifié (émotionnellement). 8 Vicariously = by proxy (par procuration, indirectement); III- KEY TO THE TRANSLATION EXERCISE: According to Edith Hall, no other art form stares at human suffering so9 unflinchingly10 as ancient Greek tragedy. Indeed, contrary to melodrama or soap operas, its invariably bleak11 denouements deprive spectators of12 any cop-out13. Yet14, in his Poetics, Aristotle claimed15 as early as16 335 BC that by eliciting17 two contradictory emotions simultaneously, terror and pity, tragedy was meant to18 have a cathartic function: it could cleanse19 the spectators of their passions or unsettling emotions likely to undermine the ideal Athenian citizen’s reason and ethical wisdom. According to George Steiner, catharsis was rather aimed at20 upsetting and unsettling audiences21 emotionally to lead them to some kind of humility or creative modesty22. (cf. Interview of George Steiner, In Our Time, « Tragedy », BBC radio 4, 12 Dec. 1999, https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p005464v ) For Aristotle, tragedy also had a moral, ethical and political function, since23 the tragic heroes had to be the victims of both divine curses and their own errors of judgement, which were often due to their hubris or their self-conceit. Their fates were meant to remind Athenian citizens that although24 they lived in an ontologically flawed and unfair world, their pains partly stemmed25 from their own mistakes26 or misdeeds. According to Sean McEvoy, the plays show that men are, to some degree27, responsible for their fates and the socio-political troubles that derive28 from them, so that Greek spectators couldn’t leave the theatre with a wholly29 pessimistic view of a mankind helpless in the face of its destiny or divine decrees. McEvoy considers that Greek tragedy implicitly teaches men that despite30 the inescapability of destiny, they have to strive31 to lessen or remedy32 their ills by their actions, their wisdom or their virtue. 9 Or : as … as (cf. comparatifs d’égalité) 10 Or : unwaveringly 11 Or : dismal, grim. 12 NB : verbe bitransitif indirect (verbe à double complément d’objet : COD + COI) => deprive sbdy of sth 13 Or: escape 14 Or : However, 15 Or : asserted 16 Or : as of 17 Notez la construction bitransitive indirecte : elicit sth (an emotion, feeling…) from sbdy = susciter une émotion … chez qqn 18 Be meant to do sth= périphrase modale (semi-modal) => voir l’exercice de grammaire en fin de sequence. 19 Notez la construction bitransitive indirecte : cleanse sbdy of sth = purify, purge => mind the pronunciation: klenz (compare with clean => kli:n) 20 Or : was aimed to upset and unsettle / was intended to upset … 21 Or : spectators 22 NB : faux ami ici => modesty = pudeur ou modestie, selon les contextes (cf. I say this in all modesty = en toute modestie) 23 Or : as, because 24 Or: while, though, even though, albeit 25 Or : derived from / resulted from … 26 Or : errors 27 Or : to a certain extent 28 Or : which result from them/ that stem from them 29 Or : an utterly pessimistic view 30 Or : in spite of … (NB : despite sth / in spite of sth) 31 Strive, strove, striven (to do sth) => s’efforcer de faire qqch / or: try, endeavour to do sth 32 NB : remédier à qqch (vb transitif indirect) = remedy sth (vb transitif direct) Other scholars, such as George Steiner, disagree with this interpretation of the worldview reflected by Greek tragedies. According to Steiner, Greek tragedy expresses a radically dismal and hopeless worldview, as opposed to the Judaeo-Christian view founded on divine justice and faith in human salvation. He even claims that there cannot be any Judaeo- Christian tragedy – even the bleakest Shakespearean tragedies, he argues, are not fundamentally tragic in the Greek sense of the term, for33 they never dismiss for good34 the possibility of divine justice. 33 Or : because (attention à cet emploi courant de « for » comme conjonction de coordination de cause, équivalant à la conjonction française « car ».) 34 For good = définitivement, pour de bon.