Date of Award
Fall 12-2015
Degree Type
Honors College Thesis
Department
History
First Advisor
Miles C. Doleac
Advisor Department
Mass Communication and Journalism
Abstract
Finding the origins of tragedy has been a fascinating subject since late antiquity, and it continues to be a source of academic debate. The controversy I have examined is from the early years of our twenty-first century, and has questioned the testimony of Aristotle, opening the debate once again. The evidence continues to prove that tragedy’s origins were religious, and even though there is no hard evidence to prove that it evolved from Dionysiac ritual, there is no hard evidence to disprove this theory either.
I have taken this opportunity to examine the origins of tragedy from its evolution, which I argue cannot be analyzed in isolation as literary genre. The evolution of tragedy was a dual evolution, both literary and political. Its development reflects political changes in Athens during the fifth century. It was in such evolution that tragedy’s themes became other than exclusively religious, and that is the cause of the superficial estrangement between tragedy as genre and tragedy as part of religious ritual.
Copyright
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Recommended Citation
Plaza-Gainza, Belen, "Democratizing Dionysus: The Origins Controversy and the Dual Evolution of Tragedy and Civism" (2015). Honors Theses. 345.
https://aquila.usm.edu/honors_theses/345
Comments
Honors College Award: Excellence in Research