La tragedia griega considerada como un oficio tradicional

Abstract

A typical representation, a regularity and an assertion of general outlines are common elements in Homer’s poetical devices. They reflect the success of certain forms which are useful to the poet, having been learnt by him and then repeated as techniques of the craft. All of this has bearing when applied to Greek tragedy within its historical circumstances and also taking into account the knowledge we have on how culture was transmitted in the Athens of the 5th century. The situation in Athens, as far as general literary tradition is concerned, is similar in some ways to what is known about the learning of oral techniques of composition. Rhetoric is also a witness on the importance of the method of learning based upon memory; in fact rhetoric did nothing more than become aware of a series of resources which were common in its class, though not so in its particular varieties, to the different literary genres cultivated in Greece at the time. The problem we are faced with is to decide whether a specific training existed or not, to give would-be tragedians the means traditionally used in tragedy, or whether the normal literary education could have sufficed for a young Athenian to begin his experiments in tragedy. In fact the texts of the tragic authors show, apart from those resources common to all poetic literature of the period, special means which imply that a special training was necessary.