The Greek Sense of Theatre: Tragedy Reviewed Book

Greek plays have survived as written texts, virtually without stage direction, and because the conditions of the first performance were never recorded at the time, it tends to be assumed that language was the most important feature of Greek drama. It is Professor Walton's contention that a close consideration of the surviving Greek tragedies reveals that all three major tragedians wrote with a masked performance in mind which promoted the use of visual images above and beyond the spoken word.This approach is placed in the context of a visual tradition in the arts in Athens, notably in architecture, sculpture and painting, which reveals a sophisticated appreciation of space and line. A logical extension of this appreciation through other performance elements such as music and dance, suggests that the Greeks viewed tragedy as a synthesis of other means of perception rather than the extension of literature it was later to become.In The Greek Sense of Theatre, J. Michael Walton proposes tRead More