Civilization Wiki
Advertisement

BackArrowGreen Back to the list of civics

 "The poets have been mysteriously silent on the subject of cheese."
– G. K. Chesterton
 "All the world's a stage, and all the men and women merely players."
– William Shakespeare


Drama and Poetry is a Classical Era civic in Civilization VI. It can be hurried by building a wonder.

Strategy[]

The development of Drama and Poetry as the earliest forms of culture is a milestone for any civilization with minimal self-respect. It opens up a society to the value of culture and its pursuit. As a result, a brand new District District, the Theater Square, is developed, and in its first building, the Amphitheater, citizens may enjoy the first fruits of their culture, Great Work of Writing Great Works of Writing. Also, another Wildcard Policy Wildcard Policy is unlocked for helping to attract Great Writers.

Civilopedia entry[]

It is unlikely that any human civilization (at any rate until the coming of those dour Puritans) has denied itself the excitement of drama or the pleasure of poetry. Drama – of a kind – is present in the rituals of most primitive cultures. While such ceremonies are certainly dramatic, they don’t evoke theater as such. Theatrical drama requires a sung or spoken text – poetry – a development which occurred in ancient Greece. Poetry itself predates literacy, back to at least the age of Homer and the oral epics of Mesopotamia.

It is in Athens, around the 6th Century BC, that drama became an “art” form. During the Dionysian festivals, a chorus would sing the stories of Greek myth. At some point, a priest of Dionysus by the name of Thespis began to engage in a dialogue with the chorus. According to legend, Thespis was also the first winner of a theatrical competition, held in Athens in 534 BC. Such competitions became a regular feature of festivals throughout Greece, and innovations – now conventions – in both tragedy and comedy were the result. Aeschylus added a second actor; Sophocles a third, further extending the dramatic possibilities. Euripides introduced plots more complex, characterizations more central, and the interactions between characters became the stuff of drama.

Meanwhile, poetry evolved as a way of remembering – orally – history, myth, law, genealogy, moral codes, and a host of other things important to civilization. (Only with the coming of writing was this burden lifted from mankind.) Most of the ancient works later set down, from the Vedas (c. 1700 BC) to the Odyssey (c. 800 BC), were composed in poetic form to aid memorization and transmission by word of mouth. The oldest surviving “poem” is the Tale of the Shipwrecked Sailor, written in Hieratic and ascribed to a date around 4500 BC … although some argue for the oldest being the Epic of Gilgamesh written in cuneiform.

Since those early years, both drama and poetry have undergone many evolutions, in both Western and Eastern civilizations. But they remain essential cultural markers in all.

See also[]

Civilization VI Civics [edit]
Ancient Code of LawsCraftsmanshipEarly EmpireForeign TradeMilitary TraditionMysticismState Workforce
Classical Defensive TacticsDrama and PoetryGames and RecreationMilitary TrainingPolitical PhilosophyRecorded HistoryTheology
Medieval Civil ServiceDivine RightFeudalismGuildsMedieval FairesMercenariesNaval Tradition
Renaissance Diplomatic ServiceExplorationHumanismMercantilismReformed ChurchThe Enlightenment
Industrial Civil EngineeringColonialismNationalismNatural HistoryOpera and BalletScorched EarthUrbanization
Modern CapitalismClass StruggleConservationIdeologyMass MediaMobilizationNuclear ProgramSuffrageTotalitarianism
Atomic Cold WarCultural HeritageProfessional SportsRapid DeploymentSpace Race
Information Distributed Sovereignty GS-OnlyEnvironmentalism GS-OnlyGlobalizationNear Future Governance GS-OnlyOptimization Imperative GS-OnlySocial MediaVenture Politics GS-Only
Future GS-Only Cultural HegemonyExodus ImperativeFuture Civic*Global Warming MitigationInformation WarfareSmart Power Doctrine
* Future Civic is an Information Era civic until the Gathering Storm expansion.


Advertisement