Towards the end of the 19th century, Friedrich Nietzsche criticised Euripides for making tragedy an optimistic genre via use of the device and was highly skeptical of the 'Greek cheerfulness' this prompted and what he viewed as the plays' 'blissful delight in life.' The deus ex machina as Nietzsche saw it was symptomatic of Socratic culture that valued knowledge over Dionysiac music and ultimately caused the death of tragedy: īut the new non-Dionysiac spirit is most clearly apparent in the endings of the new dramas. Modern criticism įollowing on from Aristotle's example, Renaissance critics continued to view the deus ex machina as an inept plot device, although it continued to be employed by Renaissance dramatists Shakespeare used the device in Pericles, Hamlet, and The Winter's Tale. Just when Harun is about to have Ja'far executed for his failure, a deus ex machina occurs when the murderer suddenly reveals himself, claiming to be the woman's husband. Ja'far, however, fails to find the murderer before the deadline.

After discovering the dead body of a young woman, Harun al-Rashid orders his vizier, Ja'far ibn Yahya, to solve the crime and find the murderer within three days or else he will have him executed instead. The earliest use of deus ex machina in a murder mystery occurs in the Arabian Nights tale of ' The Three Apples', near the middle of the story. Irrationalities should be referred to what people say: that is one solution, and also sometimes that it is not irrational, since it is probable that improbable things will happen. In Aristophanes' play Thesmophoriazusae the playwright parodies Euripides' frequent use of the crane by making Euripides himself a character in the play and bringing him on stage by way of the mekhane.Īristotle criticised the device in his Poetics, where he argued that the resolution of a plot must arise internally, following from previous action of the play: Template:CquoteĪristotle praised Euripides, however, for generally ending his plays with bad fortune, which he viewed as correct in tragedy, and somewhat excused the intervention of a deity by suggesting that 'astonishment' should be sought in tragic drama: A more frequently cited example is Euripides' Medea in which the deus ex machina is used to convey Medea, who has just committed murder and infanticide, away from her husband Jason to the safety and civilization of Athens. At the end Heracles shows up and seizes Alcestis from Death, restoring her to life and to Admetus. For example, in Euripides' play Alcestis, the eponymous heroine agrees to give up her own life in order to spare the life of her husband, Admetus. More than half of Euripides' extant tragedies employ a deus ex machina in their resolution and some critics go so far as to claim the mekhane was a Euripidean invention. The Greek tragedian Euripides is often criticized for his frequent use of the deus ex machina. The machine referred to in the phrase could be either the crane employed in the task, a calque from the Greek 'god from the machine' (' Template:Polytonic,' apò mēkhanḗs theós), or the riser that brought a god up from a trap door.

He is referring to the conventions of Greek tragedy, where a crane ( mekhane) was used to lower actors playing a god or gods onto the stage.

The Latin phrase ' deus ex machina' comes to English usage from Horace's Ars Poetica, where he instructs poets that they must never resort to a god from the machine to solve their plots.

Deus ex machina definition