Editing Tragedy (section)

== Etymology ==
The word "tragedy" appears to have been used to describe different phenomena at different times. It derives from [[Ancient Greek]] {{lang|grc|τραγῳδία}} "goat song", which comes from τράγος ''tragos'' "he-goat" and ᾠδή ''ōidḗ'' "singing, ode." Scholars suspect this may be traced to a time when a goat was either the prize<ref>See [[Horace]], ''Epistulae'', II, 3, 220: "Carmino qui tragico vilem certavit ob hircum".</ref> in a competition of [[Greek dances|choral dancing]] or was what a [[Greek chorus|chorus]] danced around prior to the animal's [[ritual]] [[Animal sacrifice|sacrifice]].{{Sfn | Brockett | Hildy | 2003 | p = 13}} In another view on the etymology, [[Athenaeus]] of Naucratis (2nd–3rd century CE) says that the original form of the word was ''trygodia'' from ''trygos'' (grape harvest) and ''ode'' (song), because those events were first introduced during grape harvest.<ref>{{Citation |last=of Naucratis |first=Athenaeus |title=The deipnosophists |url=http://digicoll.library.wisc.edu/cgi-bin/Literature/Literature-idx?type=turn&entity=Literature.AthV1.p0071&id=Literature.AthV1&isize=M&pview=hide%20 |publisher=Wisc |mode=cs1 |access-date=12 January 2011 |archive-date=27 July 2011 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110727012240/http://digicoll.library.wisc.edu/cgi-bin/Literature/Literature-idx?type=turn&entity=Literature.AthV1.p0071&id=Literature.AthV1&isize=M&pview=hide%20 |url-status=live }}</ref>

Writing in 335 BCE (long after the [[Age of Pericles|Golden Age]] of [[Classical Greece|5th-century]] [[Classical Athens|Athenian]] tragedy), [[Aristotle]] provides the earliest surviving explanation for the origin of the dramatic [[The arts|art form]] in his ''[[Poetics (Aristotle)|Poetics]]'', in which he argues that tragedy developed from the [[improvisation]]s of the leader of [[Greek chorus|choral]] [[dithyramb]]s ([[hymn]]s sung and danced in praise of [[Dionysos]], the god of wine and fertility):{{Sfn | Brockett | Hildy | 2003 | p = 13}}
{{Blockquote |Anyway, arising from an improvisatory beginning (both tragedy and comedy—tragedy from the leaders of the dithyramb, and comedy from the leaders of the phallic processions which even now continue as a custom in many of our cities), [tragedy] grew little by little, as [the poets] developed whatever [new part] of it had appeared; and, passing through many changes, tragedy came to a halt, since it had attained its own nature. | ''Poetics'' IV, 1449a 10–15{{Sfn | Aristotle | 1987 | p = 6}}}}

In the same work, Aristotle attempts to provide a scholastic definition of what tragedy is:
{{Blockquote |Tragedy is, then, an enactment of a deed that is important and complete, and of [a certain] magnitude, by means of language enriched [with ornaments], each used separately in the different parts [of the play]: it is enacted, not [merely] recited, and through pity and fear it effects relief ([[catharsis]]) to such [and similar] emotions. | Poetics, VI 1449b 2–3{{sfn|Aristotle|1932|loc=Section 1449b}}}}

There is some dissent to the dithyrambic origins of tragedy, mostly based on the differences between the shapes of their choruses and styles of dancing.{{sfn|Nietzsche|1999}} A common descent from pre-[[Ancient Greece|Hellenic]] fertility and burial rites has been suggested.{{sfn|Nietzsche|1999}} [[Friedrich Nietzsche]] discussed the origins of Greek tragedy in his early book ''[[The Birth of Tragedy]]'' (1872). Here, he suggests the name originates in the use of a chorus of goat-like [[satyr]]s in the original [[dithyramb]]s from which the tragic genre developed.

Scott Scullion writes:  {{blockquote|There is abundant evidence for tragoidia understood as "song for the prize goat". The best-known evidence is Horace, Ars poetica 220-24 ("he who with a tragic song competed for a mere goat"); the earliest is the Parian Marble, a chronicle inscribed about 264/63 BCE, which records, under a date between 538 and 528 BCE: "Thespis is the poet ... first produced ... and as prize was established the billy goat" (FrGHist 239A, epoch 43); the clearest is Eustathius 1769.45: "They called those competing tragedians, clearly because of the song over the billy goat"...<ref>{{Cite book |last=Scullion |first=Scott |title=Companion to Greek tragedy |date=2007 |publisher=John Wiley & Sons |isbn=978-1-4051-5205-1 |editor-last=Gregory |editor-first=Justina |location=Hoboken, NJ |page=29 |chapter=Tragedy and Religion: The Problem of Origins |oclc=299571432 |chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=AdTuNrx6z4oC&dq=there%20is%20abundant%20ancient%20evidence&pg=PA29}}</ref>}}