Origins of Greek Tragedy

When it comes to ancient Greek tragedy, it is important to mention Dionysus, the god of wine. The Greeks believed that Dionysus lived in a vineyard with a group of half-human, half-sheep monsters called Satyri (ps: Alcabiades compared Socrates to him in the book of drinking), leading a happy and indulgent life. Thus it was customary for the participants in the procession to be clad in sheep's skins and to bleat like real goats.

Dionysus with grapes and a wine glass in ancient Rome

"The hospitable god of wine and revelry, son of Zeus and a mortal woman, Semuel, the only official deity of mortal blood, and the closest thing to a human being of the gods, he symbolized irrationality, indulgence, and passion; invented wine and popularized the cultivation of the grape. Inherently dual in character, he can bring joy and ecstasy, but at the same time is cruel and irritable - just like wine."

--Excerpt from: Ancient Greco-Roman Mythology - Gustav Schwab

"Semele, the daughter of Cadmus, was romantically united to Zeus, and gave birth to a brilliant son, the merry Dionysus. The mother was a mortal woman, the son a god. Now the two were both gods. Blonde-haired Dionysus takes Ariadne, daughter of Minos and brown-haired, to be his wonderful wife. The son of Cronus made her immortal."

--From: The Genealogy of the Gods - Hesiod

(2) "Tragedy"

The word for tragedy is "Tragoidia", which is written as "Tragos" for goat and spelled by the singers as "Oidos", so that the original meaning of "tragedy" was "goat". The original meaning of the word "tragedy" was "the song of the goat", which may have been related to the procession that characterized the festival of the goddess of wine. However, Alexandrian scholars believe that the original prize for the tragedy contest was a goat, or that the name was derived from the fact that a goat was killed before the contest and sacrificed to the god of wine. In the 7th century B.C., ancient Greece had a so-called "Great Dionysia" (Great Dionysia), celebrated in Athens in March each year, and goat singers sang an impromptu song in honor of the god at the festival, which was called the "Ode to the God of Wine".

Angels at the Festival of the God of Wine

Tragedy is one of the main genres of drama, mainly consisting of works with irreconcilable conflicts between the protagonists and the reality of the play and its tragic end. Most of its protagonists are representatives of people's ideals and aspirations. Tragedy reveals the evils of life with a tragic ending, thus arousing the audience's grief and reverence, and achieving the purpose of improving ideological sentiment. Mr. Lu Xun has a pithy summary of tragedy: tragedy is the destruction of the valuable things in life for people to see. But Mr. Lu Xun's statement does not sum up the whole picture, and has limitations, he put forward this is from the perspective of anti-traditional culture.

In fact, tragedy refers to the desire for survival, the final outburst of vitality, and the maximization of self-protection ability shown by the subject when he or she encounters suffering and destruction, that is to say, he or she displays an extraordinary sense of resistance and perseverance in action. Tragedy theory holds that tragedy refers to the nature of human resistance to death, suffering and external pressure; the subject of tragedy has a strong self-preservation and maintenance