Greek tragedy and Japanese Noh Drama

Greek drama originated in the choral hymns sung to the god Dionysus. Mimed episodes were enacted to accompany the dithyrambs of the seventh nose candy and, as Aristotle has it, a "long series of changes" ended only(prenominal) on Tragedy's "attaining to its natural form" (Aristotle 670). The alternation of choral song and leap with enacted scenes predominated until Aeschylus introduced the second faker and "made the dialogue, or spoken portion, generate the leading part in the play" (Aristotle 670). Sophocles introduced the third actor and scenery. And cataclysm acquired its magnitude by expanding its scope and increasing the self-regard of its presentation. The playwrights proceeded by discarding the trochaic meter, more appropriate to dancing, for the iambic which was more like natural speech. The number of scenes was increased as well, allowing for the delegation of more complicated actions. Overall tragedy followed a operate of development that fitted it for the expression of important themes. In Aristotle's definition tragedy was "the imitation of an action that is serious and also, as having magnitude, complete in itself; in language with pleasurable accessories, each kind brought in separately in the parts of the work; in a prominent, not in a narrative form; with incidents arousing clemency and fear, wherewith to accomplish its catharsis of such emotions" (Aristotle 672).

For Aristotle drama was essentially echoic because the initial impulse to create poetry,

The more serious poets took the course of representing actions that were serious and involved dread personages. Of the various elements of tragedy Plot, "the combination of the incidents, or things done in the story," was the most important because it was through action, especially through peripeties and discoveries, that the tragic fear and pity are aroused (Aristotle 673). Aristotle cited, among other works, Sophocles' Oedipus genus Tyrannus as an example of the best constructed plots. In this play peripety (a change in the state of things to its opposite) is produced by the Messenger's contract, which is intended to seize Oedipus' anxiety or so his mother but has the opposite effect.

In this play the discovery (the change from ignorance to knowledge) hinges, of course, on the said(prenominal) announcement and will, as a properly constructed plot should, "arouse any pity or fear--actions of that nature being what Tragedy is delusive to represent; and it will also serve to bring about the happy or unhappy ending" (Aristotle 680).

Performance is the same. there are many roles in noh which bloom and fall in particular scenes. You must select and show a approach pattern and mind as a flower appropriate to a particular role. But most importantly you must substantiate that the flower is hidden. It is a flower because it is hidden. If it were not hidden, it would not be a flower. (Zeami, quoted in Kitazawa 108).

Aristotle was not, therefore, writing about an unbroken dramatic tradition and, even more importantly, he was writing with a specific purpose in mind--the response to Plato. At the same time that the performance tradition was in decline Plato began objecting to the nonlogical aspects of aesthetic pleasure and these were most commonly associated with the power of music, meter, and rhythm--the performative aspects of dramatic art. Aristotle's afterwards defense of poetry was meant to counter Plato's objections and he concentrated, therefore, on non-performative elements in
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