Greek plays
... see the future. In Prometheus Bound, Prometheus is not only half human half God he is also a prophet. As he is bound to this rock and is being tortured by the vultures he is prophesizing his future, as well as the Powers The girl that Zeus desired but didn’t desire him in return and al those involved in his punishment. In The Bacchae, Dionysus warns all those who do not believe in him that there are ruins to come to those who do not obey him. II. 6. Leonardo Da Vinci was thought to sort of be the founder of “Perspective”. He exhibited this not only in his writings in his notebooks but through his paintings. One very famous painting was the “Mona Lisa”. While the Mona Lisa is famous for her smile, the background features are also a great example of his views on perspective. An observer of the painting and his notebooks would find many truths in this. For example, the Mona Lisa is painted as though she were up close, almost next to you in the painting. Where as the background consisting of trees, bushes, and the river seem to be receding in a pyramid figure. Leonardo felt that perspective had a lot with to do with the way we perceive objects ourselves. Our eyes perception of the way we see things (literally). His analysis led him to conclude that there were three branches of perspective. One being (a) Linear which created a sense of distance, the next being (b) Color which would get darker as the picture goes further away in distance, And the last of the three was disappearance which requires for distance fuzziness should apply. Perspective is important for Leonardo because the three branches of perspective helped construct master pieces such as the Last Super, 1495-98, where the picture of Jesus was the center point of the portrait. Aristotle offers his own perspective on the art of tragedy in poetry to be mainly to do with the actions of the character that the tragedy is occurring to. He speculates that a tragedy is an action that imitates something admirable and complete. An event that is of misfortune, yet portrayed in language that is tasteful, like in melody format. Aristotle also speculated that in a poetic tragedy, a reader or observer of a play should be able to look at the work and speculate whether the character is good or bad. In Aeschylus, “Prometheus Bound” the main character is half man half God; he provides mortals (humans) with fire, craft, and technology and is punished by Power, which is really Zeus. To the Gods this was portrayed as an unforgivable thing to do. Humans are not meant to have the power of Fire, or Education, this is a gift that the Gods possess which basically distinguish them from all else. It’s viewed as a huge betrayal and therefore Prometheus is sent to his death by being bound to a rock and left for the vultures to tear him apart. To the humans he is a hero, because he made life easier for them by providing them with fire to cook and keep warm with, education to colonize and survive and craft to build and invent. As Aristotle speculated while reading this story you have to decide for yourself whether Prometheus is a villain or a hero. In Euripides V, “The Bacchae”, Dionysus enters the town of Hellas and introduces himself as the son of Zeus. But many citizens of Hellas are skeptical that he is who he says he is. They deny him at first and then slowly start to come around. The women become Maenads, which means possessed, and start to celebrate his arrival. All but Pentheus and his servants and soldiers buy into Dionysus story. I believe it had a lot to do with the Myth of Zeus’s story; many had a different version of what happened to Zeus and his son Dionysus. In the end Dionysus tricks Pentheus into dressing up like a woman so that he can go and spy on the Maenads and then punish them. When he arrives and gets discovered by the Maenads, they begin to rip him apart limb by limb, beginning with his mother. His mother then posts his head on her Thyrsus, she is possessed so she believes she has hunted and killed a tiger, but it is really her son. When she and all the women snap out of their possessions they realize what they have done. Which is when Dionysus punishes all of the humans that denied him his title and as Zeus’s son. To the Humans, and the Maenads that began to believe, they saw him as a God, a savior of all. But after Pentheus was taken out by Maenads all of the citizens of Hellas then start to curse the day Dionysus came into Hellas and plagued the city. In this sense we the readers must speculate whether Dionysus is a hero for being a God or a villain for provoking Pentheus’s death and then punishing all of those who did not believe his story from the beginning. Aristotle account is a question of perspective because he states in Poetics that a tragedy is that of a heroic event taken a tragic ending. 8. Shakespeare “The Tempest” portrays the tempest as a hurricane, a terrible storm. Which capsizes Prospero’s Ship, kills many sailors and loses most of their supplies. The book the tempest is described as “burst thy wind”. Which signifies their view of the storm as faces with air in their cheeks, blowing air out of their mouths and teasing its subjects into believing the faces would let the air out of their cheeks burst causing even more turmoil. The faces would surround the land blowing everything until it was destroyed blown in all directions. The storm was displayed as being so great in the end it stranded Prospero and his daughter on a barren island for twelve years. In Greenaway’s “Prospero Books” the tempest was portrayed not as a painted visual as it was shown in Shakespeare, The Tempest. Greenaway portrayed the effects that a great storm would create. In the film the effects used were harsh winds that blew everything from its place, such as paper. There were sheets of paper flying in the palace as well as out of the windows and doors. The film displayed the curtains from the windows blowing in and out of the palace along with the sheets of writings (paper). There were sounds of thunder (loud and sharp), Greenaway made the sounds of thunder sound as if the thunder was striking and destroying something every time they hit. Along with the sounds of thunder, there was a white light, which was displayed as if it was coming from the outside of the palace and it was not shown as a constant light. Instead, it would flicker on and off along with the sound ...