Theatre and Democracy

Democracy is a path, or perhaps an active utopia, which should combine the political order with a coherent culture and
art.
… the Greek experiment, which founded democracy

in a political context where no such ideas and
practices had previously existed.
Page | 1
The Athenians regarded the theater, not as
entertainment, but as the supreme instrument of
cultural instruction, a democratic paideia
complete in itself.
1963 Arrowsmith
It is our affairs that are being depicted on stage.

(Segal, 1987, p. 40).
THEATER,
the City-State
& Democracy
On Chaos & Disorder, On Tragedy,
On Myth & Ritual - On Theater & Democracy.
On The Soul Of A People
compiled by
amma birago
… the need to establish a democratic imaginary and a

moral order.
Greek Tragedy: A Metaphor of Public Debate
and Democratic Participation
Enrique Herreras
Democratic Myths Versus Traditional Myths
Tragedy, to our mind, advocates democratic myths that
contrast with the original aristocratic and traditional myths.
…. the main part of the tragedy.
Tragedy as Democratic Education
The Case of Classical Athens
Our path goes beyond the mere consideration of myth, since it wants to reach the concept of democratic myth, but first we need
to define the myth and its relationship with logos.
Democracy is a path, or perhaps an active utopia, which should combine the political order with a coherent culture and art.
Geoffrey W. Bakewell
There was, in this sense, something uniquely democratic about

tragedy. … As these insights reinforced democracy's message, Page | 2
they were inflected back into the polis, seeping into democracy's
other institutions and practices as an important check and
balance.
Tragedy As A Democratic Art Form And Practice
Mark Chou
Tragedy, in many ways, became the theoretical backbone

of democracy, which was an institution that would
set in motion many of tragedy’s themes and insights.
In ancient Greece, democracy was a revolutionary idea. No prior
principles or practices existed to guide the creation of a politics of
popular participation. No institutions could ground and implement
the new and radical project.
The Symbiosis of Democracy and Tragedy:
Lost Lessons from Ancient Greece
Mark Chou and Roland Bleiker
“The pool of energies which constitute Myths, which man no

longer embodies, is embodied by the theatre. … the figuration on
its way to becoming the transfiguration. It is on the stage that the
union of thought, gesture and action is reconstructed. And the
double of the Theatre is reality untouched by the men of today.”
Artaud, Letter to Jean Paulhan
25th January, 1936
Myth is linked to rite, but represents a transcendental step forward,

because myths help to create art, as well as new thinking. Myth maintains
a connection with logos, simply because logos emerges from a determination
to overcome myth-based thinking and narrating.
Greek Tragedy: a Metaphor of Public Debate
Enrique Herreras
Athenian tragedy was, therefore, about the spectre of

hubris in human existence: … the fact that human
beings do not know, and may never know, where and
what the limits between mortal and immortal are.
Page | 3
Journal of Hellenic Studies

Athenian Drama And The Polis*
In the last fifteen years or so, many people have been critical of the study of Athenian drama as
'literature', and have insisted that it must be understood as a performance which took place at a festival -
and in our irreligious age the festival has been seen less as a religious festival than as a civic festival, …
Similarly in the interpretation of particular plays themes have often been said to be democratic which are
better seen as concerns of polis-dwelling Greeks in general, and the notion that plays questioned Athens'
democratic values because the democratic ethos of Athens consciously encouraged the questioning of
Athens' democratic values is far from certain.
The Symbiosis of Democracy and

Tragedy: Lost Lessons from Ancient Greece
Tragedy, in many ways, became the theoretical backbone of democracy, which was an institution that
would set in motion many of tragedy’s themes and insights. As democracy developed, pressed by
the demands for everyday survival and certainty, the tragic assurance of paradox would become
increasingly invaluable if democracy was to remain true to its essence. Democracy and tragedy, therefore,
captured a delicate balance in ancient Athens.
Ritual, Myth And Tragedy

In the deep, dark forests and in the lush green valleys, worshippers of
Dionysus celebrated the eternal cycles of death and rebirth, symbolized
in the sacred mask of the wild god.
Origins Of Theatre In Dionysian Rites
Nadja Berberović
Even though they were state-sponsored events, something else always

lingered beneath the celebration of Athenian democracy, something far
more ambivalent and destructive.
Lost Lessons from Ancient Greece:

The Symbiosis of Democracy and Tragedy
Mark Chou and Roland Bleiker Page | 4
Democracy and tragedy were intrinsically linked during the time of the Athenian city-state.1 Born into a
tragic world, democracy’s story in ancient Greece unfolded much like the tales of tragedy it inspired and
then ensconced within the polis. But this symbiosis, vital as it was then, is largely forgotten today. The
dearth of serious political discussion is all the more puzzling since political scientists and scholars of
international relations write extensively on tragedy and democracy, often via a return to ancient Greece.2
However, these scholars have focused, by and large, on either democracy or tragedy. Exploration of their
essential links remains confined primarily to studies in philology or cultural history.3
… in the various political and social changes that

led to the foundation of Athenian democracy, where priority was given to
the main change, namely, the need to establish a democratic imaginary and a
moral order. Interestingly, in this context, C. Castoriadis (2006) clearly relates
logos with the instauration of demos and of a public space.
Enrique Herreras
… that the earliest theatre in Athens was built

in its market square (agora) and used temporary wooden stands
(ikria) for seating and a cleared area of the market for a stage. …
Sometime before 497 BCE, the Athenians moved their theatre
from the market square to a precinct dedicated to the god
Dionysus on the southeast slope of the Acropolis.
Geburtstags-Symposium für Walter Burkert
Bryn Mawr Classical Review by Robert Fowler
The term ritual refers to culturally structured, repetitive actions with the
explicit aim of articulation of those higher forces which are believed to
govern the universe.
In terms of Western thinking, ritual is usually perceived as having a sacred character and is often involved
in a culture’s “religious” sphere of action and thought. Ritual involves portrayal and performance, a
performance space, and performers. It often includes the use of masks, makeup, costumes, dance and
music. And finally, it often involves an audience, in ritual a highly participatory one (177).
Participation in ritual performance, or even observing solo performances
of ritual such as shamanic curing, is a major mode of enculturation and thought

conditioning in traditional societies (Morgan and Brask: 1988; 185).
Page | 5
In Western Greek cities, the theater served as the site of primary politics
– it was the place where the assembly met, where foreign ambassadors
were received and heard; where trials were held.
Peter Wilson
A Potted Political History of the Sicilian Theater
Plato claimed that tragic poets “drag states into tyranny and democracy” and that they are honored
“especially by the tyrants, and secondly by the democracies.” For more than 40 years scholars have
explored the political, ideological, structural and economic links between Athenian democracy and
theater.
What was it about democracy that encouraged, even needed,

the ascendancy of tragedy? Why did the mass performances of
tragedy play so central a role in the democratic polis of Athens?
To classicists, the term tragedy denotes, above all, public

performances of a distinct literary type. The genre likely had its
origin in competing choral hymns performed to honor a god or
gods on specific festal occasions.

Yet tragedy was Athens's intellectual glory. The whole city buzzed
for months with talk of the coming productions, which were chosen
by magistrates in a competition and funded by a special levy (liturgy)
on the richest citizens.
As storytellers and as political philosophers, the tragedians educated

theatre audiences in issues of morality, politics, philosophy, and the arts.
They structured their plots around conflicts, of law and nature, mortal
and divine, male and female, family and the state, the inside and outside,
partly in order to expose the argumentative nature of democracy.
The Birth of Democracy in Tragedy
Mark Chou
Democracy And War In Ancient Athens And Today

David M. Pritchard
The Cultural Revolution
Ancient Athens developed democracy to a higher level than any other state before modern times. It was
the leading cultural innovator age. ….
The disciplines of the visual arts, oratory, drama, and literature developed to a higher level of Page | 6
sophistication in this state than other. Many of the works produced there became canonical for Graeco-
Roman antiquity.

Tragedy was an essential part of the public administration of ancient Athens.
… the education Athenian spectators received in the theater was their best preparation
for service on the democratic bodies of the assembly, council, and law courts.
The events surrounding the performances were steeped in civic

ritual. As Goldhill notes: the four moments of ceremonial
preceding the dramatic are all deeply involved with the city's
sense of itself.
Yet for the ancient Athenians, to whom we attribute both the birth of
democracy and the creation of tragedy as an art-form, democracy and
tragedy shared intrinsic links. Born into a tragic world, democracy’s
story in Athens unfolded much like the tragic tales it inspired and then
ensconced within the Greek city-state.
Mark Chou
The birth of democracy coincided with the emergence of tragedy as a major public spectacle. This was no
coincidence. Tragedy was elevated by democracy to check the very democratic forces that were being
unleashed. To be sure, the institution of tragedy pre-dated the birth of democracy in Athens. But its
popularity and political importance was directly linked to the rise of democracy, which catapulted it into
public prominence. The staging of tragedies frequently drew crowds of up to 20,000. Spectators came
from across the ancient world to participate in a public event that, as Richard Ned Lebow stresses, ‘almost
certainly stimulated post-performance discussions among citizens about the issues that it raised on stage’.
Athenians hung on news of choral rehearsals with the rapt attention that Nebraskans reserve for details of
the Huskers' daily diet and practice regimens. And, to switch horses, tragic performances were judged
with all the hoopla now surrounding the Oscars, with perhaps the main exception being that the Athenians
took greater precautions to guard against corruption and vote-rigging among the judges.

Athens. … A relatively small Greek city-state of the fifth and fourth centuries b.c.e. consisting of perhaps Page | 7
30,000 citizens and 150,000 inhabitants overall, and occupying an area of approximately 965 square
miles, Athens was, by and large, efficiently governed by one of the most radical democracies the world
has ever seen. The sovereignty of the people, or demos, was guaranteed by three political institutions: the
popular assembly, called the ekklesia; the council of 500, or boule and the law courts, dikasteria.

All important policy decisions, whether foreign or domestic, were taken by majority votes in one or more
of these bodies. Pride of place goes to the Athenian assembly. Its meetings were open to all male citizens
over the age of about 20 and required a quorum of 6,000. Anyone who wished could speak. By the mid-
fifth century b.c.e., the city had begun offering a modest daily wage to enable poorer citizens to attend.
The body's decisions were final, although they could be (and occasionally were) reversed by other,
subsequent meetings of the assembly.
… No citizen could serve on the council more than twice in his lifetime. As in the case of the assembly,
each councilman was paid a salary to facilitate his service. And then there were the law courts. These
numerous bodies, chosen anew from a large pool of jurors for each individual trial, were composed of at
least 500 citizens who assumed the roles of both judge and jury. Bound by neither written constitution nor
precedent, they heard a wide variety of cases, ranging from the criminal to the political to the personal.
Their decisions were sovereign and not subject to appeal. They, too, were staffed by citizen volunteers
chosen annually, who were, in turn, paid for their deliberations.
These democratic, imperialistic Athenians were also the primary spectators of the city's cultural jewel: the
tragedies put on each year to honor the god Dionsysus. To classicists, the term tragedy denotes, above all,
public performances of a distinct literary type. The genre likely had its origin in competing choral hymns
performed to honor a god or gods on specific festal occasions. Over time, these choral pieces became
more and more complex, with a leader stepping out to deliver solos antiphonally with the remainder of the
chorus. This duality of voices eventually became a plurality.


By early in the fifth century b.c.e., tragedy had reached its canonical form (i.e. live, open-air, one-off
performances featuring costumed individuals who spoke, sang, and danced). It had a chorus and, at first, Page | 8
two and then later three actors who took turns interacting with one another in a variety of poetic meters
with differing feels and associations. It is a famous truism that not much happens onstage in Greek
tragedies. …

Yet tragedy was Athens's intellectual glory. The whole city buzzed for months with talk of the coming
productions, which were chosen by magistrates in a competition and funded by a special levy (liturgy) on
the richest citizens. Tribe competed with tribe and poet with poet, in the cultural equivalent of the Bowl
Championship Series. Athenians hung on news of choral rehearsals with the rapt attention that
Nebraskans reserve for details of the Huskers' daily diet and practice regimens. And, to switch horses,
tragic performances were judged with all the hoopla now surrounding the Oscars, with perhaps the main
exception being that the Athenians took greater precautions to guard against corruption and vote-rigging
among the judges.
The events surrounding the performances were steeped in civic ritual. As Goldhill notes: the four
moments of ceremonial preceding the dramatic are all deeply involved with the city's sense of itself. The
libations of the ten generals, the display of tribute, the announcement of the city's benefactors, and the
parade of state-educated boys, now men, in full military uniform, all stress the power of the polls, the
duties of an individual to the polls. ... It is an occasion to say something about the city. (1987, p. 68)
Though of pre-democratic origins, tragic theatre

emerged as an alternate site of democratic politics in the wake of Athens’
democratic revolution. So popular was tragedy that in the fifth century
BCE alone, over a thousand tragedies were produced in Athens.
Democracy & Tragedy
Mark Chou
the fifth-century bce Athenian spectators, like the Romans

watching Plautus some three centuries later, understood that
nostra res agitur: It is our affairs that are being depicted on stage
(Segal, 1987, p. 40).
Athenian tragedy was, therefore, about the spectre of hubris in human existence: the compulsion to
control, to transcend our humanity and to defy all that separates us mortals from the everlasting gods.41
… hubris captures a more basic dilemma: the fact that human beings do not know, and may never
know, where and what the limits between mortal and immortal are.
Page | 9
The historian Thucydides famously depicted political affairs

as matters of realpolitik, with both human beings and cities calculating
and pursuing their own advantage relentlessly.

In ancient Athens, the theater provided a space ‘a laboratory, if you will’ for the city to gather and
observe itself. That is to say, the spectators watched prominent individuals interact with their broader
political and social communities in ways that were largely familiar. These characters were forced to make
important choices amid trying circumstances. Their choices, while understandable and sometimes
necessary, nevertheless led almost invariably to calamity. Tragedies thus served as demonstrations of the
relation between choice and outcome, reminders that the link between cause and effect was ultimately as
inexorable as it was initially invisible. The historian Thucydides famously depicted political affairs as
matters of realpolitik, with both human beings and cities calculating and pursuing their own advantage
relentlessly. One might, therefore, say that tragedy functioned as a sort of educational counterweight.
Myth And Ritual In Ancient Greece:

Observations On A Difficult Relationship
Jan N. Bremmer
From the middle of the 1960s, the study of Greek religion received new impulses through the work of
Walter Burkert (1931-) and Jean-Pierre Vernant (1914-2007). Whereas the first half of the twentieth
century had studied Greek religion with the heuristic concepts ‘fertility’ and ‘the apotropaic’, the new
approach looked for inspiration to ethology, functionalism and structuralism, and it concentrated much of
its attention on myth and ritual.
the relationship between myth and ritual

In that year, Christian Gottlob Heyne (1729-1812), professor of Greek at Göttingen, introduced the term
mythus, and posited that myth explained the admirable and frightening sides of nature. Moreover, like his
friend Johann Gottfried Herder (1744-1803), he departed from the presupposition that myth had a local
origin and gave expression to the Volksgeist. In subsequent works he went back ever further in time in his
location of myth and eventually placed it in the primeval era before man could speak properly.
Page | 10

Mark Chou
Yet for the ancient Athenians, to whom we attribute both the birth of democracy and the creation of
tragedy as an art-form, democracy and tragedy shared intrinsic links. Born into a tragic world,
democracy’s story in Athens unfolded much like the tragic tales it inspired and then ensconced within the
Greek city-state.
Though of pre-democratic origins, tragic theatre

emerged as an alternate site of democratic politics in the wake of Athens’
democratic revolution. So popular was tragedy that in the fifth century
BCE alone, over a thousand tragedies were produced in Athens.
Democracy & Tragedy
Mark Chou
As storytellers and as political philosophers, the tragedians educated theatre audiences in issues of
morality, politics, philosophy, and the arts. They structured their plots around conflicts, of law and nature,
mortal and divine, male and female, family and the state, the inside and outside, partly in order to expose
the argumentative nature of democracy. By depicting the outbreak and resolution of such conflicts,
tragedians would teach their audience that life is ephemeral, and how knowledge of that in turn triggers a
search for certainty and immortality that frequently induces arrogance, conflict and downfall.
As many as twenty thousand spectators from across the ancient world would converge in the theatre of
the Dionysia to see these plays. As public events, Richard Ned Lebow writes that tragedies “almost
certainly stimulated post-performance discussions among citizens about the issues that it raised on stage.”
(The Tragic Vision of Politics, p.361.)
Being is Chaos:
Tragedy’s Democratic Intervention
Greek tragedies were performed publicly to large audiences twice yearly, at the City Dionysia and Lenaia.
By the end of the 5th century BC, the Dionysia festival was, in fact, second in prestige and popularity in
Greece only to the great Olympian festival of the northern Peloponnese. During these festivals,
democratic Athens would halt all activities, giving in to the spirit of revelry and inebriation.
The Symbiosis of Democracy and Tragedy: Lost Lessons from Ancient Greece

Mark Chou
Greek tragedy's multivocal form dramatized
the democratic interplay between order and
disorder and reality and fiction
Page | 11

Tragedy, to our mind, advocates democratic myths that
contrast with the original aristocratic and traditional myths.
…. the main part of the tragedy.
Myth is linked to rite, but represents a transcendental

step forward, because myths help to create art, as well as
new thinking. Myth maintains a connection with logos,
simply because logos emerges from a determination to
overcome myth-based thinking and narrating.
… the Greek experiment founded

democracy in a political context where no such ideas and practices had
previously existed.

Mark Chou
the institutions that shape global politics, from international organisations to multinational
companies, are neither transparent nor accountable to a democratic constituency. Democratic principles,
procedures and institutions are tied, almost exclusively, to the nation-state.



Page | 12
The myths of the past are stories born to celebrate the
feats of heroes, gods and rulers. However the
tragic myth explores the contradictions of social and
personal life and asks, implicitly or explicitly, for them
to be corrected.
Mark Chou
Tragedy was considered evidential proof of Athens’ superiority and ‘cultural prestige’, a didactic
commodity which could and perhaps should be exported to other city-states in Greece and beyond.

Tragedy, to our mind, advocates democratic myths that contrast with the
original aristocratic and traditional myths.
The key feature of epic theatre plays is the myth. As Aristotle said in his Poetics,
a mythos is the first principle and as it were the soul of tragedy.
The mythos, «plot» or «structure of the incidents» is for Aristotle the main
part of the tragedy.
… in the various political and social changes that

led to the foundation of Athenian democracy, where priority was given to
the main change, namely, the need to establish a democratic imaginary and a
moral order. Interestingly, in this context, C. Castoriadis (2006) clearly relates
logos with the instauration of demos and of a public space.
Enrique Herreras
Athenian tragedy was, therefore, about the spectre of hubris in

human existence: the compulsion to control, to transcend our humanity
and to defy all that separates us mortals from the everlasting gods.
… hubris captures a more basic dilemma: the fact that human beings
do not know, and may never know, where and what the limits between
mortal and immortal are.

Mark Chou
What was it about democracy in ancient Greece that encouraged, even needed, the ascendancy
of tragedy? Why and how did the subsequent mass performance of Athenian tragedy play so central a role
in the democratic polis of Athens? And might reviving this long-lost symbiosis be potentially useful Page | 13
in keeping democracy alive and flexible in today’s rapidly changing of globalisation?
One of the most intricate political tasks ahead is extending democracy to the global realm. The ensuing
challenges are as novel and as gargantuan as those faced by the ancient Greeks. The lives of citizens
around the world are influenced more and more by forces that lie beyond sovereign borders. But many of
the institutions that shape global politics, from international organisations to multinational companies, are
neither transparent nor accountable to a democratic constituency. Democratic principles, procedures and
institutions are tied, almost exclusively, to the nation-state.
How to extend democracy to the global realm is far from clear, though the allure of such a move is
underlined by the growing literature on cosmopolitan democracy. Numerous authors have advanced
possible models, such as the idea of adding a second, popularly-elected chamber to the United Nations.5
But, at present, these and other ideas are only aspirations.
It is perhaps too early to imagine how we could articulate and implement democracy in a global context
lacking in institutionalised procedures of debate, decision-making and accountability. This is precisely
why traveling back to the Athenian city-state is a worthwhile intellectual project.

Mark Chou
… the Greek experiment founded

democracy in a political context where no such
ideas and practices had previously existed.
Sometime before 497 BCE, the Athenians moved their

theatre from the market square to a precinct dedicated to
the god Dionysus on the southeast slope of the
Acropolis.
The first identification of theatre as a distinctive art form in the city-state of Athens can be dated to 534
BCE, when the first prize in a competition for tragedy was awarded. The Roman writer Horace, writing
500 years later, believed that Thespis, who won the competition, had developed theatre while traveling
with a cart that he used as a stage in any open area where an audience could gather. Such portable stages
were used for centuries in the performance of variety entertainments (called mimes). The 12th-century
Byzantine encyclopaedia known as the Suda indicates that the earliest theatre in Athens was built in its
market square (agora) and used temporary wooden stands (ikria) for seating and a cleared area of the
market for a stage. This arrangement would have resembled, and may even have inspired, the oldest
existing Greek theatres, which are at Árgos and Thorikos, both of which were built before 500 BCE.
These were open-air end stage theatres in which the house (theatron, or “a place of seeing,” in Greek) was
a bank of straight-line seats (perhaps originally in wood but eventually in stone) supported by a hillside, Page | 14
while the stage (orchēstra, or “a place of dancing”) was a roughly rectangular space at the bottom of the
hill.
The theatre can be seen not only as a locus

for debate on the merits of existing democratic ideology and practice, but as
a place to imagine what, for better or worse, democracy might yet become»
(Burian, 2011: 95).
Greek theatre, in short, seeks the protagonism of human beings, their rebellion
against the various mechanisms of power. Democracy, as in tragedy,
cannot neglect the multiple tragic conflicts that interweave in its networks,
just as a human cannot forget fortune or passions. Tragedy teaches us that
democracy is no guarantee of success.
The myths of the past are stories born to celebrate

the feats of heroes, gods and rulers. However the tragic myth
explores the contradictions of social and personal life and asks,
implicitly or explicitly, for them to be corrected.
… the need to establish a democratic imaginary and a

moral order.
Enrique Herreras

Tragedy, to our mind, advocates democratic myths that contrast with the
original aristocratic and traditional myths.
The key feature of epic theatre plays is the myth. As Aristotle said in his Poetics,
a mythos is the first principle and as it were the soul of tragedy (1450a).
The mythos, «plot» or «structure of the incidents» is for Aristotle the main
part of the tragedy.
“The pool of energies which constitute Myths, which man no longer embodies, is embodied by the
theatre. By this double, I mean the great magical agent of which theatre, through its forms, is only the
figuration on its way to becoming the transfiguration. It is on the stage that the union of thought, gesture
and action is reconstructed. And the double of the Theatre is reality untouched by the men of today.”
Artaud, Letter to Jean Paulhan.
25th January, 1936

Mark Chou
Page | 15
Unlike the ancient Greeks to whom we attribute the birth of Western democracy, we do not turn to their
tales of tragedy (even though we may continue to turn readily to their teachings on politics and
philosophy) when seeking to revitalize our own democratic politics. That symbiosis, between democracy
and tragedy, may have been vital then.
Why, in other words, are we no longer interested in finding out what it was about democracy in ancient
Athens that encouraged, and even needed, the ascendancy of tragedy? Why is it now considered
politically beside the point for our own democratic initiatives to understand how the mass performance of
tragic drama represented democratic politics?
… the long-forgotten link between democracy and tragedy, it holds the core conviction that there is a
great deal to this ancient symbiosis that can offer highly relevant insights for today's global democratic
challenges.

Mark Chou
What can we learn from the ancients and how they grappled with the never before experienced questions
associated with ‘democratic excess’? By expanding democracy to the courts, festivals, marketplaces and,
of course, to the theatre, they soon heard voices beyond the official political purview. Yet, what they
recognized as invaluable, praised as incisive and celebrated with all their souls and minds, we in more
modern times have seemingly abandoned – even as our own aspirations for more egalitarian, fruitful and
inclusive democracies remain and intensify.
…To the Greeks, tragedy dramatized the insight that no single voice or way of life was absolute and
wholly true; that even the greatest among them was not all great and all wise. This, among other things,
was a democratic reminder that men and women in their hubris will continue to tempt fate and, in so
doing, overstep their individual limits.
When Athens first became a democracy, tragedy was quick to guide the newly empowered citizens
through their first definitive attempt to found democratic institutions and procedures against a context
where no such ideas and practices had previously existed. Faced with a similar predicament, we too might
be able to draw on the democratic insights of the Greeks’ tragedy in order to come to grips with our own
political and cultural transformations, not to mention the cries for more radical and inclusive forms of
political participation.
… the most politically relevant insight of the symbiosis of democracy and tragedy stems from tragedy's
so-called multivocal form – that is, the ability of tragedy to bring a variety of otherwise marginalized
stories, characters and voices onto the public stage and into democratic debate. Tragedy teaches us the
lesson that while order is necessary for a stable and productive communal existence, sites of disorder
likewise provide insights into dilemmas posed by political instability, inequality, exclusion and flux. A
truly democratic order must seek to include and give voice to democratic disorder. The second lesson
drawn from tragedy's multivocal form is that both ‘factual’ and ‘fictional’ sources of knowledge can be
potentially valuable when seeking to negotiate and overcome complex democratic dilemmas.

Mark Chou
Page | 16
There was, in this sense, something uniquely democratic about tragedy. At the cusp of the democratic
world order, tragedy stepped into the breach, soon developing into an official democratic forum. Playing
on Old World tensions in novel ways, tragedians reminded audiences that even the greatest among them
was not all great and of how easily the known order of things can come undone. Articulated away from
the pressures of everyday existence, where the limitations of reality were suspended, each member of the
audience was urged to reflect upon and empathize with each other's imperfections. As these insights
reinforced democracy's message, they were inflected back into the polis, seeping into democracy's other
institutions and practices as an important check and balance.
Tragedy was considered evidential proof of Athens’ superiority

and ‘cultural prestige’, a didactic commodity which could and
perhaps should be exported to other city-states in Greece and
beyond.
… it was tragedy's multivocal form – its ability to bring a variety of otherwise marginalized stories,
characters and voices onto the public stage and into democratic debate – which reaffirmed a crucial
democratic interplay that was implicit in the rise of democracy though not always realized through it
thereafter: the insight that order and disorder and reality and fiction are inextricably wedded together.
… tragedy was a medium through which the dichotomy between Greek and barbarian was first defined,
though some would say also problematized. Tragedy was considered evidential proof of Athens’
superiority and ‘cultural prestige’, a didactic commodity which could and perhaps should be exported to
other city-states in Greece and beyond.
We cannot, as such, in retelling democracy's story ignore the entrenched links between democracy,
tragedy and empire. Instead, we must, according to the political thinker John Keane, acknowledge the
‘link between hubris and democracy’, which is to say, the role that tragedy played in a polis that ‘would
make arrogant mistakes, such as acting cruelly against enemy cities, just for the hell of it’.
Only by broadening the scope of reality, through resorting to fiction, can democrats hope to legitimate a
variety of otherwise marginalized stories, characters and voices in our own democratic deliberation. This
is what tragedies, ancient and modern, are apt to do: to revitalize democracy in its multivocal form.
Democracy And War In Ancient Athens And Today

David M. Pritchard
The Cultural Revolution
Ancient Athens developed democracy to a higher level than any other state before modern times. It was
the leading cultural innovator age. ….
The disciplines of the visual arts, oratory, drama, and literature developed to a higher level of
sophistication in this state than other. Many of the works produced there became canonical for Graeco-
Roman antiquity.
Page | 17
Enrique Herreras
Athenian citizens deliberate in the assembly, but the theatre also becomes a place for public debate. In
addition to being a consequence of economic or cultural aspects, democracy is a consequence of the
development of a democratic imaginary. Located in that imaginary, Greek tragedies, regarded as
«democratic myths», work to reaffirm Athenian democracy. Far from being dogmatic, the tragic myth
explores the contradictions of social and personal life and implicitly or explicitly seeks their correction.
This dramatic genre encourages participation from the spectator (citizen) that greatly exceeds the
schematic reduction in Aristotelian theory of catharsis. Greek tragedy proposes the existence of an
«audience», of spectators who need a sufficient level of maturity to make that assessment. Democracy is a
path, or perhaps an active utopia, which should combine the political order with a coherent culture and
art.
tragedy as a metaphor of democratic art,

ancient Greek theatre and democratic culture of the city
While tragedy is one of the most powerful human constructions that attempts to present and disclose the
underlying enigma of peoples’ lives, the democratic city, bursting with riddles and conflicts, also
penetrates those lives.
Tragedy is probably better thought of as a more or less natural expression

at the cultural level of a set of social and mental habits of democratic
society (Wilson, 2011: 26).
In that context, we consider the truly amazing fact that, because the
government of Athens was a religious and political institution (together
with the Assembly and the Parthenon), it could have used its theatre to
transmit certain ideas and values. … Greek tragedy, understood
metaphorically, of course, may contribute to democratic and civic
education by raising the notion of civic paideia.1
But, what elements from tragedy contribute to democratic culture?

Democracies require reasons but also «democratic myths»; and thus we can describe this artistic
expression as a model of public cultural policy…. That deliberation is present in a tragedy, that
«educates» citizens in democracy, tolerance and freedom.
We may add that in the city-states of ancient Greece, … Public life happened in the market square and in
the assemblies, where citizens met to discuss the day’s issues; this outline of the public sphere was, in
principle, an open field of debate with each other as equals.
In this context, we consider myth as conflict. The myths of the past are stories born to celebrate the feats
of heroes, gods and rulers. However the tragic myth explores the contradictions of social and personal life
and asks, implicitly or explicitly, for them to be corrected. Page | 18
… in the various political and social changes that led to the foundation of Athenian democracy, where
priority was given to the main change, namely, the need to establish a democratic imaginary and a
moral order. Interestingly, in this context, C. Castoriadis (2006) clearly relates logos with the instauration
of demos and of a public space.

Enrique Herreras

Tragedy, to our mind, advocates democratic myths that contrast with the original aristocratic and
traditional myths. The key feature of epic theatre plays is the myth. As Aristotle said in his Poetics,
a mythos is the first principle and as it were the soul of tragedy. The mythos, «plot» or «structure of the
incidents» is for Aristotle the main part of the tragedy. Thus, to some extent, tragedy becomes part of a
kind of knowledge. However, myths provide an initial interpretation of the world or its meaning.
Myth is linked to rite, but represents a transcendental step

forward, because myths help to create art, as well as new
thinking. Myth maintains a connection with logos, simply
because logos emerges from a determination to overcome myth-
based thinking and narrating.
Our path goes beyond the mere consideration of myth, since it wants to reach the concept of democratic
myth, but first we need to define the myth and its relationship with logos.
Democracies, as we said at the beginning, need reasons, solid ground, principles, but also myths to help
them survive, to shape a democratic culture, because, otherwise, they may be reduced to a mere
constitutional framework empty of meaning and of authentic democratic life.
Tragedy, therefore, emerges from the mind of a civic artist, an artist who is directly confronted with moral
and political disagreements, and it reflects on the conscience and responsibility of the individual (R.
Padel), on human problems related above all with the decision, but also, as we have seen, glimpses
the conflicts of the democracy. «The theatre can be seen not only as a locus for debate on the merits of
existing democratic ideology and practice, but as a place to imagine what, for better or worse, democracy
might yet become» (Burian, 2011: 95).
Enrique Herreras
Greek theatre, in short, seeks the protagonism of human

beings, their rebellion against the various mechanisms of
power. Democracy, as in tragedy, cannot neglect the
multiple tragic conflicts that interweave in its networks,
just as a human cannot forget fortune or passions.
Tragedy teaches us that democracy is no guarantee of Page | 19
success.

In Ancient Greece,
Democracy was a revolutionary idea.
Democracy and tragedy were intrinsically linked during the time of the Athenian city-state. Born into a
tragic world, democracy’s story in ancient Greece unfolded much like the tales of tragedy it inspired and
then ensconced within the polis. But this symbiosis, vital as it was then, is largely forgotten today. The
dearth of serious political discussion is all the more puzzling since political scientists and scholars of
international relations write extensively on tragedy and democracy, often via a return to ancient Greece.
However, these scholars have focused, by and large, on either democracy or tragedy.
In ancient Greece, democracy was a revolutionary idea. No prior principles or practices existed
to guide the creation of a politics of popular participation. No institutions could ground and implement the
new and radical project accountable governments – ensure that democracy functions smoothly,
even as political forces and attitudes change.
Rather than simply entrench a new and stable order, the emerging politics of democracy nourished itself
with that same spirit of independence and radicalism that had propelled the democratic revolution in the
first place. It captured the paradoxical nature of existence that had been suppressed under aristocracy: the
simultaneous urge towards creation and destruction, expansion and retreat, inclusion and exclusion, or
self-institution and self-limitation.

What resulted was a trademark that would define democracy in ancient Athens: the search for the basic
yet fragile equilibrium between what is and what is not. Maintaining this delicate balance was seen as
important because it promised a more democratic way of disclosing and coping with the emerging
political challenges.
The birth of democracy coincided with the emergence of tragedy as a major public spectacle. This was no
coincidence. Tragedy was elevated by democracy to check the very democratic forces that were being
unleashed. To be sure, the institution of tragedy pre-dated the birth of democracy in Athens. But its
popularity and political importance was directly linked to the rise of democracy, which catapulted it into
public prominence. The staging of tragedies frequently drew crowds of up to 20,000. Spectators came
from across the ancient world to participate in a public event that, as Richard Ned Lebow stresses, ‘almost
certainly stimulated post-performance discussions among citizens about the issues that it raised on stage’.

Tragedy, therefore, was not just a byproduct of a radical democratic experiment. Rather, both democracy Page | 20
and tragedy depended on each other for their operation and legitimacy. Without democracy, tragedy
would not have attained such public prominence. And in the absence of tragedy, Athens may not have
dared become so radically democratic. In short, democracy was tragic and tragedy democratic.
The paradoxical mix of order and chaos compelled the Greeks to seek out more creative, inclusive and
reflexive modes of thought and action. The ensuing quest lies at the heart of what democracy hoped to
cultivate and capture. Democracy was conceived to defy, continuously, every closed system of thought.
Previously untouched and untouchable traditions came under scrutiny, as the way life was became
juxtaposed with the way it could be.
A civilization flourishes only where concrete structures and systems of knowledge are created. Order and
meaning must thus be fashioned out of chaos and meaninglessness. And this order and meaning has to be
legitimate enough to be accepted by the majority of its people. Institutions and shared customs are
essential. Democracy gave this responsibility to its people. It gave them the power and right to be equals
and to have an equal say in what institutions and customs best accommodate the vision of life they hoped
to live. Under democracy each citizen had the opportunity to help create and maintain a communal way of
life that would be beneficial and meaningful to all. But self-institution had to be counterbalanced with
self-limitation. Doing so was essential for the ancient Greeks because no one individual, idea or ideal was
seen as ever being absolute or beyond contention.

Democracy and tragedy were intrinsically linked during the time of the Athenian city-state. But though
vital at the time, this symbiosis is largely forgotten today. … What was it about democracy that
encouraged, even needed, the ascendancy of tragedy? Why did the mass performances of tragedy play so
central a role in the democratic polis of Athens? … the paradoxical plots that lie at the heart of tragedies
remind us – as they did the Greeks – that no order is ever complete or void of contradictions; that
democracy is not about complete control but about recognizing the limits of politics and dealing with the
forces of chaos and change.
Being is Chaos:
Tragedy’s Democratic Intervention
Greek tragedies were performed publicly to large audiences twice yearly, at the City Dionysia and Lenaia.
By the end of the 5th century BC, the Dionysia festival was, in fact, second in prestige and popularity in
Greece only to the great Olympian festival of the northern Peloponnese. During these festivals,
democratic Athens would halt all activities, giving in to the spirit of revelry and inebriation. Performances
drew as many as 20,000 spectators, and these included all classes of people from Athens
and beyond. The spatial arrangement of the performance further intensified the spectacle. Everyday
citizens were seated block after block, next to specially reserved sections for distinguished members as
well as foreign dignitaries. It was one of Athens’ greatest occasions of self-dramatisation.
Funded, organised and judged by public authorities and wealthy citizens, the festivals and the tragedies
unfailingly glorified the Athenian status quo. These were national days of celebration: moments Page | 21
when Athenians paid homage to all that was great and enviable about Athens. The spectacle roused a
sense of community, highlighting and heightening civic ideals, pride and unity in an attempt to edify the
newly emerging political order – even one as radical and as unstable as democracy. Accompanying
ceremonies honoured model citizens, demonstrated the unity among the ten generals of Athens and, in a
more general sense, exhibited the wealth and military might that made
the city-state as powerful as it was.
Even though they were state-sponsored events, something else always

lingered beneath the celebration of Athenian democracy, something far
more ambivalent and destructive.
Athenian tragedy was, therefore, about the spectre of hubris in human existence: the compulsion to
control, to transcend our humanity and to defy all that separates us mortals from the everlasting gods.41
… hubris captures a more basic dilemma: the fact that human beings do not know, and may never
know, where and what the limits between mortal and immortal are.

Ritual, Myth And Tragedy:

Nadja Berberović
In the deep, dark forests and in the lush green valleys, worshippers of Dionysus celebrated the eternal
cycles of death and rebirth, symbolized in the sacred mask of the wild god. Drunk and intoxicated,
wearing the mask of Dionysus, the actor is at once the shaman and the priest. Channeling the presence of
the fearsome divinity, he drinks the sacred wine and eats the raw flesh of his prey. In this eternal
moment, he becomes one with the god and the beast residing inside of him.
Within Ancient Greek culture, the sacred rites of Dionysus have been appropriated and transformed to
theatre performances. The shaman became the actor, the participants became the audience, the sacred
altar became the stage.
From myth as a ritual performance emerged the theatre of

tragedy, in which the undying spirit of Dionysus, majestic and
terrifying, speaks to us even today.
According to Eliade, myth and ritual are vehicles of the “eternal return” to the mythical age. Ritual is an Page | 22
imitation of the divine acts of gods or mythic heroes, through which the archaic man “detaches himself
from profane time and magically re-enters the Great Time, the sacred time” (Eliade: 1975; 23). The site of
the ritual is symbolically transformed into a sacred center, and the validity of the mythic act is confirmed
by the repetition of the divine sacrifice (Eliade: 1954; 20).
Generally, ritual may also be defined as a “broadly conceived, any prescribed, stylized stereotypical way
of performing some act. Narrowly, a single act of a religious performance” (Vivelo 1978, as cited in
Morgan and Brask). The term ritual refers to culturally structured, repetitive actions with the explicit aim
of articulation of those higher forces which are believed to govern the universe.
In terms of Western thinking, ritual is usually perceived as having a sacred character and is often involved
in a culture’s “religious” sphere of action and thought. Ritual involves portrayal and performance, a
performance space, and performers. It often includes the use of masks, makeup, costumes, dance and
music. And finally, it often involves an audience, in ritual a highly participatory one (177).
Participation in ritual performance, or even observing solo performances

of ritual such as shamanic curing, is a major mode of enculturation and
thought conditioning in traditional societies

Nadja Berberović
Morgan and Brask stress rituals’ social function:
The major function of ritual in traditional societies is the sanctioning of the extant social order, the
maintenance of societal integration and therefore of social control, whereby whatever authority structure
may exist in a society receives cosmological approbation. (...) The discourse of ritual is timeless,
and the past is projected through varieties of symbolic manipulation into the future. Even the initiates
in ritual are traditionally prepared for the course of events and the content of the ritual. Participation in
ritual performance, or even observing solo performances of ritual such as shamanic curing, is a major
mode of enculturation and thought conditioning in traditional societies (Morgan and Brask: 1988; 185).
Tambiah defines ritual as “a culturally constructed system of symbolic communication”, involving

patterned and ordered sequences of words and acts, whose content and arrangement are characterized in
varying degree by formality stereotypy condensation, and redundancy (Tambiah, as cited in Graf: 2007;
38). In this sense, ritual can be perceived as subset of the broader area of ‘performance’. Both depend on
the notion of communicative actions directed towards an audience, and both are differentiated in some
way from ordinary, everyday processes of communication. The two can be compared and contrasted in
terms of emphasis on aesthetic enjoyment versus functional power - the difference between a poem and a
magic spell. Bauman notes that “performance usually suggests an aesthetically marked and heightened
mode of communication, framed in a special way and put on display for an audience” (Bauman, as cited
in Graf: 2007; 38).

Nadja Berberović Page | 23
Anthropologist Victor Turner characterizes both ritual and theatre as aspects of “cultural performance”
(Turner: 1982, as cited in Morgan and Brask: 1988; 185). The dramaturgy of ritual simultaneously
employs the elements of role play and dialogue, music, song, and dance. All of these aspects are oriented
towards the same means, though none of them acts in the same way as another, nor would any of them
make the same sense if performed individually. Anthropology has borrowed the term ‘synaisthesia’ from
psychology to describe the “multifarious cooperation of many communicative means that compose
ritual’s highly representational character on the one hand, and its bold concreteness on the other”
(Kowalzig: 2007; 47).
Theatre may be conceived as involving the following elements - what is performed, the performance itself
and the audience. What is performed may be “dance, musical drama, variety entertainment, mime, the
improvisation and portrayal of a story involving impersonation and dialogue, or the acting out of a written
script including plot and character portrayal” (Brockett 1984, as cited in Morgan and Brask: 1988; 177).
In theatre, the audience consists of onlookers who usually don’t directly participate in the performance;
rather, they are instructed. The dramatic theatre often addresses the validation of cultural institutions,
societal hierarchies and ethic values. The usual focus on pre-Classic and Classic Greece as the origin of
theatre emphasizes the fact that Ancient Greek theatre involved a portrayal of the actions of deities, other
supernatural entities and mortals (Morgan and Brask: 1988; 178).
Ancient Greeks performed myths and stories, and acted out social and religious rituals, using text, music,
dance, costume and impersonation in some combination or other. ‘Theatrical’ performances, in the form
of solo or group activities formally presented to an audience in a designated space and for a
conventionally recognized occasion, can be found in almost all societies, ancient or modern, Eastern and
Western.
The borderline between ritual and theatre, ceremony and play, may not always be easy to draw
(McDonald and Walton: 2007; 13). Ancient Greek rituals had a vital narrative and a performative aspect,
put together as myth and ritual. Within the aesthetic contextualization of myth - ‘hearing’ and ‘seeing’ the
stories in performances - was essential in enhancing the gods’ credibility.
Nadja Berberović

Tragedy teaches us the lesson that while order is necessary for a stable and productive communal
existence, sites of disorder likewise provide insights into dilemmas posed by political instability,
inequality, exclusion and flux. A truly democratic order must seek to include and give voice to democratic
disorder. The second lesson drawn from tragedy's multivocal form is that both ‘factual’ and ‘fictional’
sources of knowledge can be potentially valuable when seeking to negotiate and overcome complex
democratic dilemmas.
There was, in this sense, something uniquely democratic about tragedy. At the cusp of the democratic Page | 24
world order, tragedy stepped into the breach, soon developing into an official democratic forum. Playing
on Old World tensions in novel ways, tragedians reminded audiences that even the greatest among them
was not all great and of how easily the known order of things can come undone.
Only by broadening the scope of reality, through resorting to fiction, can democrats hope to legitimate a
variety of otherwise marginalized stories, characters and voices in our own democratic deliberation. This
is what tragedies, ancient and modern, are apt to do: to revitalize democracy in its multivocal form.

Theater and Democratic Thought:

Arendt to Ranciere
Richard Halpern
The Greeks invented both democracy and theater. And having done this much, they then invented a third
thing - political theory - that allowed them to conceptualize relations between the other two. Plato’s
interlocking critiques of democracy and drama formalized a general intuition that theater played a central
role in the political life of the democratic city. … Present-day scholars largely concur in the view that
theater helped to educate the demos in the deliberative reason, critical judgment, and civic values that
undergirded political life.
Peter Wilson
A Potted Political History of the Sicilian Theater
Plato claimed that tragic poets “drag states into tyranny and democracy” and that they are honored
“especially by the tyrants, and secondly by the democracies.” For more than 40 years scholars have
explored the political, ideological, structural and economic links between Athenian democracy and
theater.
In Western Greek cities, the theater served as the site of primary politics – it was
the place where the assembly met, where foreign ambassadors were received and
heard; where trials were held.
From the archaeological side, in the absence of clear evidence for a separate place of assembly, we should
assume that, when they had one, Sicilian Greeks conducted their mass political business in their theater. It
is a deep-rooted assumption that a city’s agora served as its place of assembly, but those deep roots rest
on thin soil.
In a democracy the theater was only one political space among several, and ultimately, not the most
important. In tyrannies, theater was the sole space for mass communication between ruler and ruled, and
tyrants had no motivation to develop a political space that was conceptually and practically distinct from a
theatrical space. The attractions of a politicized theater and theatricalized politics were too great. It is
becoming increasingly clear that the Sicilian tyrants deployed populist strategies to establish and maintain
their rule, strategies for which the theater was an essential medium of engagement with their citizenry.9 Page | 25

Chou & Bleiker
The democratic revolution in ancient Greece occurred at a time when politics was dominated by
repression, inequality and injustice. The order which had been created and which, at the expense of the
many, had served the few so well, roused widespread discontent and anger. And it was this discontent and
anger which eventually boiled over, rupturing the traditions of the once unquestionable hierarchy. It is not
difficult to see why tragedy rapidly came to prominence within this tumultuous environment.
The space that was once assured was now a vacuum, calling to be filled with new dreams and
expectations as well as more inclusive norms and structures.
“The pool of energies which constitute Myths, which man no longer embodies, is embodied by the
theatre. By this double, I mean the great magical agent of which theatre, through its forms, is only the
figuration on its way to becoming the transfiguration. It is on the stage that the union of thought, gesture
and action is reconstructed. And the double of the Theatre is reality untouched by the men of today.”
Artaud, Letter to Jean Paulhan.
25th January, 1936
… Tragedy is still alive for the very reason that we are humans,
and fundamentally, our human condition remains largely
unchanged.
Tragedy and Democracy Today
Mark Chou
Yet the symbiosis between democracy and tragedy, vital as it then was,
has been politically devalued in modern times.
… Tragedy is still alive for the very reason that we are humans, and fundamentally, our human condition
remains largely unchanged. And despite repeated proclamations that we are living in an age of
unparalleled progress, equality and freedom, there exists a palpable sense of dread and doubt for us also.


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Democracy is a path, or perhaps an active utopia, which should combine the political order with a coherent culture and

… the Greek experiment, which founded democracy

It is our affairs that are being depicted on stage.

… the need to establish a democratic imaginary and a

There was, in this sense, something uniquely democratic about

Tragedy, in many ways, became the theoretical backbone

“The pool of energies which constitute Myths, which man no

Myth is linked to rite, but represents a transcendental step forward,

Athenian tragedy was, therefore, about the spectre of

Journal of Hellenic Studies

The Symbiosis of Democracy and

Ritual, Myth And Tragedy

Even though they were state-sponsored events, something else always

Lost Lessons from Ancient Greece:

… in the various political and social changes that

… that the earliest theatre in Athens was built

Participation in ritual performance, or even observing solo performances

of ritual such as shamanic curing, is a major mode of enculturation and thought

What was it about democracy that encouraged, even needed,

To classicists, the term tragedy denotes, above all, public

Tragedy as Democratic Education

As storytellers and as political philosophers, the tragedians educated

Democracy And War In Ancient Athens And Today

Tragedy as Democratic Education

The events surrounding the performances were steeped in civic

Tragedy as Democratic Education

Tragedy as Democratic Education

… that the earliest theatre in Athens was built

Geburtstags-Symposium für Walter Burkert

Tragedy as Democratic Education

Though of pre-democratic origins, tragic theatre

the fifth-century bce Athenian spectators, like the Romans

The historian Thucydides famously depicted political affairs

Tragedy as Democratic Education

Myth And Ritual In Ancient Greece:

the relationship between myth and ritual

The Birth of Democracy in Tragedy

Though of pre-democratic origins, tragic theatre

The Birth of Democracy in Tragedy

Democratic Myths Versus Traditional Myths

Myth is linked to rite, but represents a transcendental

… the Greek experiment founded

Tragedy As A Democratic Art Form And Practice

… that the earliest theatre in Athens was built

In ancient Greece, democracy was a revolutionary idea. No prior

popular participation. No institutions could ground and implement

Democratic Myths Versus Traditional Myths

… in the various political and social changes that

Athenian tragedy was, therefore, about the spectre of hubris in

Tragedy As A Democratic Art Form And Practice

Tragedy As A Democratic Art Form And Practice

… the Greek experiment founded

Sometime before 497 BCE, the Athenians moved their

The theatre can be seen not only as a locus

The myths of the past are stories born to celebrate

… the need to establish a democratic imaginary and a

Democratic Myths Versus Traditional Myths

Tragedy As A Democratic Art Form And Practice

Tragedy As A Democratic Art Form And Practice

Tragedy As A Democratic Art Form And Practice

Tragedy was considered evidential proof of Athens’ superiority

Democracy And War In Ancient Athens And Today