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1 results

  • 8f - Athenian Religion and Literature

  • from 8 - Greek culture, religion and society in the fifth century b.c.
  • Edited by David M. Lewis, John Boardman, J. K. Davies, M. Ostwald
  • Book:
    The Cambridge Ancient History
    Published online:
    28 March 2008
    Print publication:
    26 March 1992, pp 268-286

  • Summary

    For the fifth-century Athenian audience the dominant literary phenomenon was the drama. Drama emerged from a context of ritual celebration and remained even in its developed form an act of worship, honouring the god in his precinct. The relation between religion and literature was a phenomenon unique in the history of the West. There are some aspects of the religious element in Sophoclean tragedy which seem to stem from sources darker and deeper than the final Aeschylean vision of civic order based on divine reconciliation. The focus of his tragedy is often not the community but the lonely, stubborn protagonist who defies it, recalcitrant to the end, impervious to persuasion or threat. Comedy was first included in the programme of the Dionysia in 486 BC. From fear and reverence for the gods, even for Dionysus himself, comedy brought the worshipper a momentary dispensation.