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Greek Tragedy Quotes

Browse 80 quotes about Greek Tragedy.

Greek Tragedy Quotes

“The new non-Dionysiac spirit is most clearly apparent in the endings of the new dramas. At the end of the old tragedies there was a sense of metaphysical conciliation without which it is impossible to imagine our taking delight in tragedy; perhaps the conciliatory tones from another world echo most purely in Oedipus at Colonus. Now, once tragedy had lost the genius of music, tragedy in the strictest sense was dead: for where was that metaphysical consolation now to be found? Hence an earthly resolution for tragic dissonance was sought; the hero, having been adequately tormented by fate, won his well-earned reward in a stately marriage and tokens of divine honour. The hero had become a gladiator, granted freedom once he had been satisfactorily flayed and scarred. Metaphysical consolation had been ousted by the deus ex machina.”

DramaTragedyHeroesConsolationGreek TragedyPlaysDeus Ex MachinaDionysian
Book:The Birth of Tragedy
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“Aside from the encounter with the Sphinx, there is little in Oedipus to connect him to the common run of Greek heroic figures. He strikes us today as a modern tragic hero and political animal; it is hard to picture him shaking hands with Heracles or joining the crew of the Argo. many scholars and thinkers, most notably Friedrich Nietzsche in his book The Birth of Tragedy, have seen in Oedipus a character who works out on stage the tension in Athenians (and all of us) between the reasoning, mathematically literate citizen and the transgressive blood criminal; between the thinking and the instinctual being; between the superego and the id; between the Apollonian and the Dionysian impulses that contend within us. Oedipus is a detective who employs all the fields of enquiry of which the Athenians were so proud -- logic, numbers, rhetoric, order and discovery -- only to reveal a truth that is disordered, shameful, transgressive and bestial.”

TragedyMythologyHeroesGreek MythologyGreek Tragedy
Book:Heroes: Mortals and Monsters, Quests and Adventures
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“This consideration takes us very close to what it is that makes Greek tragedy “tragic.” A play about an unambiguously heroic young woman, someone’s mother or sister or daughter, squaring off against an unambiguously villainous general or king, a man greedy for military renown or for power, would not be morally interesting. What gives Antigone and Agamemnon and other plays their special and unforgettable force is that they present the irresistible spectacle of two worldviews, each with its own force, harrowingly locked in irreducible conflict. And yet while the characters in these plays are unable to countenance, let alone accept, their opponents’ viewpoints, the audience is being invited to do just that—to weigh and compare the principles the characters adhere to, to reflect on the necessity of seeing the whole and on the difficulties of keeping the parts in equilibrium. Or, at least, to appreciate the costs of sacrificing some values for others, when the occasion demands.”

AudienceTragedyStorytellingHeroesGreek TragedyAntigoneAgamemnonAncient GreeksAncient Greek Tragedy
Author:Daniel Mendelsohn
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“গ্রিক ট্র্যাজেডিতে 'Destiny is Character' মানে ভাগ্য নায়ককে চালিত বা নির্দেশিত করে। শেইকস্পিয়ারিয় ট্র্যাজেডিতে 'Character is Destiny' মানে নায়ক নিজেই নিজের ভাগ্যকে সৃষ্টি করে। কিন্তু বাস্তব জীবন এ দুটোরই সংমিশ্রণ!”

LifeCharacterDestinyHeroTragedyGreek TragedyShakespeareanShakespearean Tragedy
Author:Md. Ziaul Haque
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“Because there were times when one found themselves in perfect harmony with another being. Like after one had taken a risk, faced their biggest fear, and found themselves blinking in the dust as a wall crumbled before of them. Like making love to the love of one’s life, followed by the perfect evening of constellation watching. And he finally understood, despite all the constellations placed in the sky as warning, why all those Greek maidens gave it up in the end. It was because all the pain endured was nothing compared to what love was worth. Love was the beginning of everything.”

LovePainFearHarmonyGreek TragedyAngus Augustus Braxton LenoxSiobhan Falkner
Book:Not A Book: Royal Love
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“By dread things I am compelled. I know that. I see the trap closing. I know what I am. But while life is in me I will not stop this violence. No. Oh my friends who is there to comfort me? Who understands? Leave me be, let me go, do not soothe me. This is a knot no one can untie. There will be no rest, there is no retrieval. No number exists for griefs like these.”

ViolenceRevengeUnstoppableGreek TragedyElectraSelf AwareSophoclesUnfixable
Book:Electra
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