New Ulm review. (New Ulm, Brown County, Minn.) 1892-1961, 1896-10-07
THE HISTORY o E POETRY.
Prof. Janpe Talks Of the Artof Expressing
Ones Self II Poetry
continued.1


Of Bacchus certain recitals Of poems ant
|songs about the merits of this god s;;si
j his career on earth. It was only during
the reign of Pisistratus that Thespls hac
the good idea Of bringing more variation
into the monotony Of these exercises b
having an orator or actor tell stories, al
first about Bacchus, a little later about
other gods and even about heroes, be-
tween the different numbers Of the choir
Thespis is said to have made up these
pieces himself, and he had them per.
formed in different places-not only in
Athens taking his poetical works a.
long in chariot; a tradition that caused
modern writers to designate the stage as
a "Thespis' chariot" ("Thesplskarren'')
which name seems meaningless since we
have standing theatres.
It has often been said that poetry has
It's origin in religion; you see here in
how far this is correct. Indeed dramatic
poetry originates everywhere IN the re.
ligious service not only in Greece but
also in the whole occident. But it is
not the first class of poetry that comes
up; on the contrary it is the last of the
three possible kinds. .-z..
The work of Thespis was continued
by Choerilus and 2hlyn1chus, and then
comes, rapidly developing within the
space of half a century, the fourishing
epoch of Greek dramatic art in Aeschy-
lus, Sophocles, and Euripides, whom Ar
istophanes follows as a worthy fourth.
Aeschylus, the first of the three TRACE
dians, added a second actor, Sophocles
the third, and at this number the Greeks
stopped. The first actor, the protagon-
list. usually had one part only, this being
of course the most prominent, and sever
al poets have often taken this part in
their pieces themselves. The second &C
tor, the deuteragonist, had two or three
parts as the piece would permit, and the
third, the tritagon1st, had all the rest.
It would he beyond the scope of this
sketch to give particulars about the elias
sic stage, the theater, the actors and the
chorus, interesting though it might be;
I can only point out the progress made
in the pieces. Aeschylus is grand, but
rather rough in his characters, and he
seems to us affected in language. Soph-
ocles is superior in all respects, especially
in language, and his s'Antigone," in
which the tragic end IS the result of
conflict between piety toward the dead
and obedience to severe law, is perhaps
the best tragedy written in Greek. There
remained however one step forward to
be made by Euripides, namely to bring
the characters of the pieces nearer to the
hearts of the audience, nearer to their
way of thinking, and to take the subjects
so as to make this possible. We may
say that in his piecas VIC first find real
men and women, such as his contempor-
ares Must have been, although to be sure
they appear in somewhat localized form.
AS compared to him sophocles repre-
sents heroes, and Aeschylus gods, i. e. en-
tirely superhuman beings; they would
have had no room in the world as it was
in 1853, the year when Aeschylcs left
Athens.
Different from the tragedy in many re-
spects is the comedy, but then you must
not think that it was performed for the
mere amusement Of the masses, for it
had religious, moral, and political ten
denotes throughout. After !. slow devel-
opment of between 100 and $50 years it
reached its highest perfection in Aristo.
planes, who lived from about .450 t
375, and gave his first piece. as far as We
know, in 425 B. G. Aristophanes OPP
posed the demagogues Of his time, he
ridiculed in the most sarcastic manner
their ways of misleading the people, anc
he IS full of moral Indignation about the
foolishness of the masses, the intrigue!
of the politicians, and the casnistry ant
moral laxity of the sophists. His arts
tic abilities and his language are also ad
mirable; he made the boldest compost
tons Of words, not only for the purpos
of being funny, but for reaching absolute
clearness Of the thoughts and apercu
that abound all over his plays. He re
minds in this respect us Of Rabelais, Blu
still more of the versatile j ohm Fischsrt
i In the four dramatists named Greco
had reached all it could reach with it
civilization; from about 81 there set
in rapid decline, which perhaps woul
not have been SO co nplete and SO "a,
but for the fearful consequences Of fh,