The birth of tragedy is a subject about which scholars are still in deep disagreement. There is certainly value in looking at 'primitive' societies, particularly for the mask as a mode of transformation and for the phenomenon of divine possession (where the person imitating the demonic powers thinks that he/she feels them inside him/her). Farming festivals and religious rites have common roots and answer to universal human needs. Yet nowhere else was this form of expression carried to the same degree, with the creating of dramatic poetry, as in Attica. The institutions of democracy and free dialogue: these were the basic preconditions that altered the form and content of Dionysiac popular rituals and dithyrambic hymns. Within a very short space of time the subjects began to be drawn from other myths besides those about Dionysus. The form of the drama lost in improvisation, but gained in stability of structure. The role of the chorus was reduced, that of the actor enhanced.


It was (so tradition had it) during the reign of Pisistratus as tyrannos at Athens, round about the middle of the sixth [6th] century B.C., that the playwright Thespis 'farsed' the dithyramb, sung by a chorus in honour of Dionysus, with lines in a different metre and not set to music. In these lines the speaker, Thespis himself, 'replied' (hypekrineto, whence the term hypokrites, 'actor') to the words of the chorus. This is why Thespis is seen as the Father of Tragedy and of the Theatre in general.


Choerilus (523-520): Of Choerilus we know only that he wrote many works.
Phrynichus: The titles of two 'historical' plays by Phrynichus have come down to us. One is the 'Fall of Miletus'. This play earned the author a fine from the Athenians for dealing with the suppression of the Milesians' revolt from Persia and reminding them of "kindred sorrows". The other is the Phoenissae. The subject here was the defeat of the Persians at Salamis, and the play had a chorus of women from Phoenicia. It won the drama festival in 476.
Pratinas: Pratinas found himself up against Aeschylus in the first drama festival which we know about, some time between 499 and 496. He is chiefly mentioned as a remodeller of the satyr-play.


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