OCR A-level Classical Civilisation · H408/21

Greek Theatre

Revision questions with answers for H408/21 Greek Theatre in OCR A-level Classical Civilisation (spec H408). Practise with flashcards, a topic quiz, a random quiz across the course, 5 crosswords, or read every question and answer below.

All questions and answers

Question 1 · Spec pp. 16–19
What festival frames Athenian tragic competition?
Answer:
The City Dionysia combined civic and religious observance with competitive performances in honour of Dionysus.
Question 2 · Spec pp. 16–19
What was a choregos responsible for?
Answer:
A wealthy citizen financed a chorus as a public service. Competition linked private prestige to civic performance.
Question 3 · Spec pp. 16–19
How did masks affect casting?
Answer:
Male performers could portray characters of different ages, genders and statuses. Costume, gesture and voice helped distinguish roles.
Question 4 · Spec pp. 16–19
What was the orchestra used for?
Answer:
It accommodated choral song and dance. Its relationship to actors and spectators made collective responses visible.
Question 5 · Spec pp. 16–19
How could the skene create dramatic meaning?
Answer:
Its façade could represent a palace or house. Entrances and concealed interiors divided public knowledge from private action.
Question 6 · Spec pp. 16–19
Why use a messenger speech?
Answer:
It brings distant or unseen action before the audience through language, allowing vivid narration and reactions from listeners.
Question 7 · Spec pp. 16–19
How does a tragic chorus mediate interpretation?
Answer:
Its songs and interventions offer responses shaped by the chorus's identity. These responses may change or prove incomplete.
Question 8 · Spec pp. 16–19
What does peripeteia mean?
Answer:
A reversal in the direction of the action, especially when an attempt to secure one outcome produces its opposite.
Question 9 · Spec pp. 16–19
What does anagnorisis mean?
Answer:
A movement from ignorance to knowledge. Recognition can transform a character's understanding of earlier events.
Question 10 · Spec pp. 16–19
How does Oedipus initially act like a good ruler?
Answer:
He receives the suppliants, has already sent Creon for guidance and publicly commits himself to finding Laius' killer.
Question 11 · Spec pp. 16–19
Why is Oedipus' curse dramatically ironic?
Answer:
His condemnation of the unknown murderer ultimately falls on himself. The audience can recognise a danger he cannot see.
Question 12 · Spec pp. 16–19
How does Tiresias challenge Oedipus' authority?
Answer:
He possesses knowledge that the king lacks and resists pressure to speak. Political power cannot force a truth to become welcome.
Question 13 · Spec pp. 16–19
How does sight function as a motif?
Answer:
The blind prophet understands the truth while the sighted king misreads it. Oedipus blinds himself after recognition.
Question 14 · Spec pp. 16–19
Why does Oedipus suspect Creon?
Answer:
He interprets Tiresias' accusation as an attempted political takeover. His speed of inference becomes dangerous.
Question 15 · Spec pp. 16–19
How does Jocasta try to undermine trust in prophecy?
Answer:
She cites the apparent failure of an oracle about Laius. Details of the supposed failure instead draw Oedipus closer to the truth.
Question 16 · Spec pp. 16–19
Why does the Corinthian messenger bring a reversal?
Answer:
His news is intended to relieve anxiety, but revealing Oedipus' adoption makes the question of his birth urgent.
Question 17 · Spec pp. 16–19
Why does the shepherd resist answering?
Answer:
His testimony links the abandoned infant to Laius and Jocasta. Revealing the truth completes the king's ruin.
Question 18 · Spec pp. 16–19
How does Jocasta's recognition differ from Oedipus' recognition?
Answer:
She grasps the truth first and tries to halt the investigation. His insistence that it continue separates them.
Question 19 · Spec pp. 16–19
How is Oedipus responsible even though the oracle is fulfilled?
Answer:
He acts without knowing his parents' identities, but his violence at the crossroads and subsequent choices remain his own.
Question 20 · Spec pp. 16–19
How does the closing chorus qualify judgements about happiness?
Answer:
Oedipus' reversal makes a prosperous life appear insecure until its whole course can be judged.
Question 21 · Spec pp. 16–19
What does Dionysus establish in the Bacchae prologue?
Answer:
He states his divine identity, explains his grievance against Thebes and announces his intention to demonstrate his power.
Question 22 · Spec pp. 16–19
Why is Pentheus' idea of order vulnerable?
Answer:
He treats worship as a threat to discipline and sexuality. His fear and fascination make him receptive to Dionysus' trap.
Question 23 · Spec pp. 16–19
How do Cadmus and Tiresias contrast with Pentheus?
Answer:
They choose to honour Dionysus and join the worship. Their arguments combine religious prudence with concern for the city and family.
Question 24 · Spec pp. 16–19
Why is the interrogation of the Stranger ironic?
Answer:
Pentheus believes he controls a foreign prisoner. The audience knows the prisoner is the god whose power he denies.
Question 25 · Spec pp. 16–19
How does the palace disturbance shift authority?
Answer:
Apparent physical control over the Stranger collapses. The king cannot secure his own palace against divine intervention.
Question 26 · Spec pp. 16–19
How does the first herdsman's account complicate Pentheus' accusations?
Answer:
It depicts ordered, miraculous worship before violent resistance. The women appear capable of both harmony and terrifying force.
Question 27 · Spec pp. 16–19
Why does Pentheus agree to disguise himself?
Answer:
Dionysus encourages his desire to observe the women. The king's attempt to spy makes him an actor in the god's spectacle.
Question 28 · Spec pp. 16–19
How does the dressing scene reverse gender and power?
Answer:
Pentheus accepts costume and arrangement from the Stranger. The ruler who policed boundaries now depends on the god to perform a new identity.
Question 29 · Spec pp. 16–19
What is sparagmos in the Bacchae?
Answer:
The tearing apart of a victim. The maenads dismember Pentheus while Agave believes she has killed an animal.
Question 30 · Spec pp. 16–19
How does Cadmus guide Agave towards recognition?
Answer:
He asks questions that restore her awareness of her surroundings and of the head she carries. Recognition turns triumph into grief.
Question 31 · Spec pp. 16–19
What makes Dionysus' victory ethically troubling?
Answer:
His divinity is established, but the punishment destroys a family. Cadmus questions the severity of divine anger.
Question 32 · Spec pp. 16–19
How does the Bacchae chorus differ from the Oedipus chorus?
Answer:
The Bacchants are devotees of the god directing the action. The Theban elders in Oedipus negotiate loyalty amid uncertainty.
Question 33 · Spec pp. 16–19
What problem initiates Frogs?
Answer:
Dionysus wants a capable tragedian back among the living. The journey becomes a judgement about poetry's value to Athens.
Question 34 · Spec pp. 16–19
How does Dionysus' Heracles costume create comedy?
Answer:
His appearance claims heroic toughness while his behaviour exposes fear and inexperience.
Question 35 · Spec pp. 16–19
How does Xanthias challenge expectations of a slave?
Answer:
He often shows greater courage and practical judgement than his divine master. Their costume exchanges unsettle their hierarchy.
Question 36 · Spec pp. 16–19
What is the role of the frogs' song?
Answer:
Its repeated croak competes with Dionysus as he rows. Rhythm and vocal rivalry turn physical effort into a comic performance.
Question 37 · Spec pp. 16–19
How do the initiates broaden the comedy?
Answer:
Their religious songs coexist with topical jokes and civic advice. A journey through Hades becomes a forum for addressing Athens.
Question 38 · Spec pp. 16–19
What is a parabasis?
Answer:
A comic passage in which the chorus addresses the audience relatively directly, often engaging with public affairs or poetic competition.
Question 39 · Spec pp. 16–19
What is an agon?
Answer:
A structured contest of arguments. In Frogs the contest between Aeschylus and Euripides tests different ideals of tragedy.
Question 40 · Spec pp. 16–19
What criticism does Euripides level at Aeschylus?
Answer:
He mocks grand diction, prolonged silences and impressive figures who say little. He presents his own drama as more intelligible.
Question 41 · Spec pp. 16–19
How does Aeschylus criticise Euripides?
Answer:
He argues that depicting disreputable behaviour and teaching clever argument can erode the moral training tragedy should provide.
Question 42 · Spec pp. 16–19
How does weighing poetry parody literary criticism?
Answer:
Lines are literally weighed on scales. A judgement about verbal weight becomes a physical absurdity on stage.
Question 43 · Spec pp. 16–19
Why does Dionysus finally choose Aeschylus?
Answer:
The question becomes which poet can benefit the city. Civic advice and the power to educate help determine his decision.
Question 44 · Spec pp. 16–19
Why does the date 405 BC matter for Frogs?
Answer:
Athens was nearing defeat in the Peloponnesian War. The search for a poet who can save the city has immediate political force.
Question 45 · Spec pp. 16–19
What is Old Comedy's use of personal abuse?
Answer:
Named public figures can become targets of jokes. The humour depends on shared knowledge and exaggerates for competitive effect.
Question 46 · Spec pp. 16–19
What does the Douris Pentheus cup contribute to studying the Bacchae?
Answer:
It presents the dismemberment myth in a visual medium earlier than Euripides' play, allowing comparison of choices made by different artists.
Question 47 · Spec pp. 16–19
Why distinguish a vase painting from a record of a production?
Answer:
A painter can adapt myth to the shape, audience and purpose of a vessel. Similarity to a play alone cannot establish a staged scene.
Question 48 · Spec pp. 16–19
How does the Theatre of Dionysus help interpret choral performance?
Answer:
The arrangement of audience, orchestra and performance area helps explain visibility and collective movement. Later remains require caution when reconstructing fifth-century staging.
Question 49 · Spec pp. 16–19
How can costume distinguish comedy from tragedy?
Answer:
Exaggerated bodies, padding and comic masks can foreground physical humour. Tragic costume can convey status, vulnerability or reversal.
Question 50 · Spec pp. 16–19
What makes drama a civic source with limits?
Answer:
It was performed competitively at a civic festival, yet fictional speakers, genre and dramatic irony prevent simple identification of a character's opinion with Athens' views.

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