Relationship Between Philosophy and Dramatic Art
The Relationship Between Philosophy and Dramatic Art In his book entitled The Arts, Hendrik Willem Van Loon observes, "The arts are an even better barometer of what is happening in our world than the stock market or the debates in congress." Van Loons observation alludes to the relationship between the arts and contemporary culture as artists not only reflect contemporary culture, but also comment on and persuade in their work. Arguably the best example of the relationship between the arts and contemporary culture is discovered in the relationship between dramatic art and philosophy. Dramatic art, by merit of its spatial and temporal nature, immediately provides life for a given philosophy, and philosophy, through the impacts of its movements, invariably influences culture. Though scholars attribute playwrights employments of various philosophies to a litany of motives, I assert that the choice to incorporate a specific philosophy within a dramatic work is reducible to the playwrights desire to maintain civilization. ... As the birthplace of philosophy and drama, ancient Greece was an intellectual haven. ... Sophism was perhaps the most controversial philosophy because it threatened societal norms. ... In his version of Oedipus, Seneca espouses the philosophy of stoicism. ... The proliferation of stoic philosophy throughout the Roman world was complemented by its parallelism with the pre-existing Roman virtues. ... Whereas Classical drama reflects the innumerable philosophical debates of its time, Medieval drama is philosophically unified through the philosophy of scholasticism.