Thursday, September 8, 2011
Wylie Period 1 Team 5
In the time of the Ancient Greeks & Romans theatre productions were the main form of entertainment. One of the most popular plays was “Oedipus” by Sophocles and it tied together how Ancient Greeks felt about science, religion, and politics. Religion in that time revolved around the idea that people didn’t have control of their own fate and that it was all up to the gods what happens to them and what they do. This is shown when the fortune teller gives the prophecy of Oedipus’ life and even though his mother and father tried to stop it from happening there was nothing they could do to prevent it because it was the gods will. It is demonstrated even more through the fact that after Oedipus killed his father it was said that Zeus forbid the people from finding the murderer. Science, having not been nearly as developed as religion, was less obvious in the play. Science was just questioning the gods will rather than accepting it. Ancient Greeks didn’t believe in following logic and only believed in following divine will. The inferiority of science to religion is shown in the play when Oedipus questions his fate or Jocasta questioned the prophecy, but these notions were only slight and then shut down. It tied in with politics because all the noble men or people in powerful positions acted with loyalty and selflessly, which gave people more faith in their leaders of the time.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
Interesting, our group had not thought of the inability of Jacosta and Oedipus's logic to overthrow the prophecy as being a representation of the Greek view on the conflict of science and religion. For the Greeks, as you said, science was only helping religion and had no place questioning it, just like what happens to Jacosta's and Oedipus's logic being squashed by the will of the gods. On a different note, our group found Oedipus to be a very political play: it shows how one power-hungry dictator cannot retain power and that the people (represented by the Chorus) will eventually know what best to do (direct democracy).
ReplyDelete-John Farnworth, Fedor Kossakovski, Charles Salumbides, Justin Cornford; Wylie, P5, T1
ash.p1.t3.greek & roman
ReplyDeleteGood example of Greek values through the play Oediupus Rex. To offer a different perspective, the Greek sculpture AntikytheraEphebe showed a strong relationship between science and religion. AntikytheraEphebe is a1.94 meters bronze statue of a man reaching out grasping for an object. The statue is grasping for knowledge, reason, and science. He is making an effort to explain the world using science. The work also introduces a religious element through modeling the man in the image of the Greek god of herds and herald of the gods, Hermes. This ultimately shows the marriage of the two concepts of religion and science. The work of art communicates that science and religion are dependent on one another and both concepts are significant in Greek life.