Dal rito alla tragedia: Lo strappo originario e l'invenzione del teatro

Connecting the origins of tragic theatre to Dionysian rituals is a ruling and undisputed vulgata. The idea is supported by the (not always careful) reading of a series of Latin and Greek sources, and in analogies that would be found among the various performative expressions at different geographical, chronological, and cultural latitudes. The core of this thought – which presents itself as totalitarian in its assertiveness, but is very weak in its internal logical articulation – is to be discussed and confuted from different standpoints. The hypothesis that constitutes the argumentative skeleton of this essay is that the theatre is a properly Greek invention – placed with precision in Athens between the sixth and fifth centuries BC – that does not arise from a continuity with Dionysian rituals, but rather originates from a theoretically decisive break from the religious dimension of the rite. In support of this hypothesis, the essay proposes a new analysis of a series of ancient sources (from the Hellenistic age to the Byzantine Suda Lexicon) that have not always been considered with due attention or analysed with sharp hermeneutical intention.