The Greeks adopted the general patterns of these seasonal dramatic rituals and made them part of their yearly calendar of religious festivals, built around the doings of gods like Apollo and Dionysos. The great Greek tragedies and comedies evolved slowly from ritual re-enactments and recitations of poems about the gods and heroes, and originally were conceived as religious ceremonies, sacramental acts designed to have a beneficial effect on the spirit. The magnificent outdoor theatres of ancient Greece were originally built as temples dedicated to the god Dionysos, one of the dying and rising gods. The plays enacted there were intended as the dramatic climax to vast religious pageants, and they were carefully designed to bring about the emotional effect that Aristode called catharsis, a feeling of pity and fear evoked by watching the unfolding fate of a hero. The hero of a Greek tragedy was a stand-in for the old god-king, undergoing a sacrificial death on behalf of all the members of the society, and bringing about a catharsis in the members of the audience through sympathy with his or her sufferings.
In Athens, along with dramatic rituals honoring Apollo and Dionysos, seasonal festivals were organized around the myth of Demeter and Kore (Persephone), a primal mother and daughter who once ruled over an endless summer of abundance. Their story tells how the seasons began, and its festivals are timed to coincide with the seasonal rhythms of planting, tending, harvesting, and surviving the winter. Their drama's Call to Adventure was the kidnapping of Persephone by Hades, lord of the Underworld. The rituals re-enacted her kidnapping in October, at the Thesmophoria, three days of festivals exclusively for women. This was the emptying, introducing the time of Mortification and Purgation.
In the myth, Demeter's grief at the disappearance of her daughter brings about a terrible season in which the earth lies barren as the goddess of the harvest neglects her duties in order to mourn and search for her daughter. Demeter becomes the hero of an epic quest, playing many roles as she seeks out her daughter in the Underworld and induces the gods to make a deal with Hades to allow Persephone to return to the world of light and life, at least for part of the year.
Kore/Persephone's return was celebrated at festivals called the Lesser Eleus-inia in February, marking the return of spring.
Every five years, the Greater Eleusinia, the greatest festival in the Greek calendar, was held in September. Some of the carvings from the pediment of the Parthenon depict these jubilant ceremonies, when the young horsemen of Athens would fetch the sacred objects from the temple of Demeter and march them to a special shrine, the Eleusinion, at the base of the Acropolis. The story of Demeter and Kore was acted out in secret ceremonies of great emotional impact for a select group of initiates, using all the effects of lighting, music, dance, ritual, and staging to bring about the desired catharsis.
Nowadays we may use the term catharsis more broadly to mean any kind of emotional release or breakthrough. Catharsis was adopted by the psychological community to describe a therapeutic process in which repressed thoughts, fears, emotions, or memories are deliberately brought to consciousness, triggering an emotional release or breakthrough that is supposed to relieve anxiety and relax tension. Movies and stories as well as art and music can have a role to play in triggering a psychologically healthy cathartic reaction.
THE CATHARSIS OF COMEDY
In the classical Greek system, it was recognized that balance is needed in a dramatic presentation or else it can be overwhelming and exhausting. They added comedies to the ritual line-up to relieve the emotional intensity of the tearful tragedies with some cathartic laughter for contrast.
Comedy belongs to the "plerosis" or filling up portion of the ritual cycle. Once emptying and purging have been fully experienced, it's time to fill up again with something healthy, tasty, and life-affirming that stimulates Invigoration and Jubilation.
The word comedy comes from "komos" which means "the revels," a wild party or orgy. Rituals of Invigoration in very ancient times involved a big feast in which eating, drinking, and all kinds of merriment were encouraged, to make a vivid contrast with the somber tone of the Mortification and Purgation rituals that preceded it. One aspect of comedy is the stirring up of sexual urges. Greek comedy often dealt with power struggles between men and women and celebrated sexuality with exaggerated costumes and situations. Freud considered that there was a strong linkage between laughter and sexuality, and of course sex is a natural catharsis that relieves tension.
The Greeks thought two or three heavy doses of tragedy would do a good job of mortifying and purging you, and a dose of comedy was just the right finish to a ritual cycle, sending you back into the next season of the year refreshed, psychologically cleansed and reborn, and cheerful. As they used to say in vaudeville, "Always leave 'em laughing."
RETURN OF THE LIGHT
A feature of the seasonal rituals in ancient times was the re-lighting of the sacred fire in a central temple, symbolic of the victory of life over death. The flame would then be passed from person to person, carrying home candles or small oil lamps from which the individual hearth fires could be re-lit to Invigorate the culture. The hearth fire would be used to cook a feast that was consumed as part of the Jubilation that concluded the seasonal cycle.
Some of these rituals survive in various ways around the world today. I witnessed one remnant at a Greek Orthodox Easter service in New York City. Part of the Lenten observations is to cover the beautiful painted statues and icons with purple cloths and put out the candles for a time, symbolically evoking grief and lamentation over Christ's suffering, death, and burial. Then, at a moment symbolizing the Resurrection, a large Paschal candle is lit in the darkened church. In the
Greek Orthodox church in New York, the congregants had brought along small candles which they lit from the big one. At the end of the service they exited the church, but the ritual went on as the families walked home or got into their cars, carefully shielding the flames from the wind, preserving the light of the new season to kindle their own symbolic hearth fires in their homes, just as people used to do thousands of years ago. In similar ceremonies in Jerusalem, Greek pilgrims will even carry home the sacred flames on specially chartered airplanes.
When we deal in drama or narrative today, we are building on forty thousand years of tradition and experience. Humans have always sought orientation and emotional release through drama. Although our entertainment is more evenly distributed throughout the year, we still partake of some of the seasonal ritual effect. New shows on television are typically launched in September, time of the fall equinox. Going to movies with family at holiday times or watching particular holiday films like It's a Wonderful Life each year is an emotional tradition for many people. Certain kinds of movies seem to be associated with specific seasons. In general we like love stories and sport stories in the spring and summer, while more thoughtful dramas tend to be released in fall and winter. The winter solstice, roughly coinciding with the Christmas and New Year's holidays, is a good time to release big fantasy pictures, especially those that comprise trilogies that can be run over successive year-end holidays. Summer is the time for the blockbusters and action pictures.
THE POWER OF THE SEASONS
We are not so conscious of the seasons these days since we are somewhat insulated from their effects, and most of us no longer live by the rhythms of planting and harvesting. However, the seasons still have their power over us, affecting our lives and our moods in ways both obvious and subtle. The seasons of the year and seasonal holidays can be useful to the writer, providing natural turning points, a measure of the passage of time, and distinct emotional associations. The passage of a single season makes an effective time frame for a movie (That Championship Season, Summer Catch) or a story's four-movement structure could be built around the passage of the seasons (The Four Seasons'). A change of seasons in a story can signify a change in the hero's fortunes or mood. A story could be built around a character who is disastrously out of synch with the rhythm of the seasons.