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• W4250554167 abstract "Free Access Chorus First published: 01 November 2012 https://doi.org/10.1002/9781118351222.wbegt9998 AboutSectionsPDF ToolsRequest permissionExport citationAdd to favoritesTrack citation ShareShare Give accessShare full text accessShare full-text accessPlease review our Terms and Conditions of Use and check box below to share full-text version of article.I have read and accept the Wiley Online Library Terms and Conditions of UseShareable LinkUse the link below to share a full-text version of this article with your friends and colleagues. Learn more.Copy URL Share a linkShare onFacebookTwitterLinked InRedditWechat The chorus is a prominent aspect of Greek drama, and a defining feature of ancient Greek society. While Greek drama was created and produced at Athens, the singing and dancing group known as the chorus is found in many other ancient Greek cities. A chorus may be composed of men, of young male or female adolescents, and it varies in number. It might dance in a designated Sound and Meaning, which was known as the orchēstra in classical Athens. The Homeric Iliad and the Odyssey include some brief pictures of choruses. The most striking images come from the description in Il. 18.490–606 of the shield of Achilles, where young men and women are the dancers, who may take their lead from someone playing a lyre, all watched with pleasure by a crowd. They dance in circles or in lines, and sing or shout, although in a passage from Od. 8.261–6 it is the lyre-player who sings while young men dance (see also Greek Epic and Tragedy). One of the dances pictured in the Homeric poems occurs at a wedding (Il. 490–6) and in the subsequent archaic period (c. 700–500 bce) we become aware of different kinds of chorus for different occasions, some dedicated specifically to gods, others linked to what we might call moments of transition in human lives (Ley 2007: 124–32, and Calame 1977). Danced songs of these kinds are composed for a given occasion, preserved as complete or fragmentary texts, but other kinds of chorus may have been “traditional,” using ritual refrains or customary language. Some ritual group-cries do stand out, notably that of “Hymenaios” made at weddings, “Paean” made to Apollo (Ἀπόλλων) at moments of victory or as a call for healing, and “Euoi” made to Dionysus (Διόνυσος) by his worshippers, and dancing may have been associated with these. A composed song had a patron, either private and aristocratic or a community, which would usually be a polis, a city-state. The generic titles for these choral songs may belong to a later period of classification, but we can probably detect songs that were attached to the eligibility of young girls for marriage, or partheneia; wedding songs, hymenaioi; dirges or laments for the eminent dead, thrēnoi; and songs for victors in the athletic games of Greece, epinikia. These choruses celebrate or commemorate moments of transition, and may be readily associated with the ideas advanced by Van Gennep (1960) about rites of passage (see also Initiation in Greek Tragedy/Transition to Adulthood). Other kinds of chorus were dedicated to specific gods, and here the generic terminology is much less clear, with the paean for Apollo and the Dithyramb for Dionysus standing out from the more general terms such as hymnoi and prosodia, a word whose meaning seems to indicate a song sung in procession (on the paean, see Rutherford 2001, and on the dithy-ramb Zimmermann 1992; see also Religious Practices in Greek Tragedy). If wedding songs inherited characteristics from those described in Homer, then they were danced, and so surely were partheneia. Even if dancing was the primary characteristic of early choruses, as pictured in Homer, it may be that certain kinds of relatively static chorus did evolve, or choruses that moved in procession (prosodia) but did not dance. What the archaic period does bring is the artistry and control of the composer, who had the ability to provide words for the specific occasion, the knowledge to draw on myth for examples, the skill to compose melody, and probably the physical expertise to envisage dance through the rhythm of words and music. Any chorus would need training, and we cannot be sure the extent to which composers passed their compositions across to others to impart and execute as performances. The principles of Greek mousikē (music) are known to us, and these are that the rhythm of syllabic length (the distinction, for example, between the short “bat” and the long “bar” in English) provided the pattern for melody, in creating formal structures of verse that would provide a beat for dance and so by extension at least a rubric for choreography. So the text determined the music, and was not “set to music” in our modern sense. The chorus that is of the greatest significance to drama is one dedicated to the god Dionysus, the dithyramb, a word whose meaning is obscure. This form existed in the archaic period, alongside other kinds of chorus, and persisted through the classical period. It played a remarkable role in Athens, because at the foundation of the democracy just before 500 bce it became associated with the innovative ten tribes, which cut across former groupings dominated by aristocratic clans on a regional basis. The annual festival of Dionysus in the spring was chosen as the occasion of performances of dithyrambs by large choruses from all ten tribes: these were of men and of boys, with 50 performers in each. So 1,000 Athenians sang in the dithyrambs in each festival, and references in ancient sources indicate that the dithyramb was a “circular” chorus. Dionysus was known for ecstatic dancing in his worship, but the extent to which the dithyramb was danced is unknown; each dithyramb would have been an original, commissioned composition, at least in the classical and democratic period. The best composer might ensure victory in the competition, and wealthy Athenians were selected to pay for the expenses of training and equipping a chorus, which might require specialists in voice and movement if the chorus was to be successful (see Chorus). So the democratic, dithyrambic competition while sung and danced by volunteers from the tribes did give rise to a kind of professionalism, which would have included attention to costume and garlands for the singers. The spring festival of Dionysus was known as the City and Country Dionysus (Διόνυσος) and it also became host to another form of chorus, namely tragedy. The origins of tragedy are obscure, and traditions concerning its reputed founder, Thespis, are impossible to verify and rather sparse. What is apparent is that what we call tragic drama or tragedy was in origin a tragic chorus, and in the official terminology of the democracy a composer was “granted a chorus” by the magistrate. Since tragedy must have its origins in the archaic period, it is not surprising to find its essence in a chorus, and it is further characterized by being a chorus dedicated to Dionysus. This fact may have led later Greek scholars such as Aristotle to speculate that tragedy was derived from the dithyramb (Poet. 1449a10–11), but if this was the case at Athens it is odd to find both dithyrambs and tragic choruses performing alongside each other in the same festival (see also Aristotle's Theory of Tragedy; Origins and History of Greek Tragedy). If tragedy was like other archaic choruses, it will have had a composer who provided words and through words the rhythm for melody and dance. Yet what makes tragedy completely different from other choruses is the fact of acting, the impersonation of characters in direct speech by individual performers. We ourselves, even from the limited number of tragedies that now survive, can see the required number of Actors and Acting increasing from two to three as the fifth century progresses, and it is not difficult to conclude that at some point there must have been only one actor. There are reasonable indications from some ancient sources that this single actor was, in the first instance, the composer himself, and one tradition about Thespis proposed that he added a prologue and speaking parts to a performance by a singing and dancing chorus (Pickard-Cambridge 1968: 130–1). Actual evidence from our surviving plays makes it clear that actors might also sing and dance, at times and at length in conjunction with the chorus (e.g., Xerxes (Ξέρξης) in the conclusion to Aeschylus’ Persians). The outstanding distinction is that actors personified characters. This may be something that was, to an extent, done by other kinds of archaic chorus within the scope of what may otherwise have been an evocative, sung narrative. For example, some fragmentary songs of Stesichorus contain direct speech by identified characters, rather as the Homeric poems had done (Campbell 1991: 137–8). But at Athens, and in relation to the tragic chorus, this became a distinctive and exaggerated feature of performance. So in one sense the discussion of tragedy is of a chorus that is joined by actors; but history plays that false, because the actors begin to steal all the attention and the centrality of the chorus is yielded to them. The result of that process is that we find it easier to analyze Greek plays from the point of view of character, and critical viewpoints often have difficulty with the chorus. We can redress that partly by turning to the tragedies of Aeschylus, which come from the second half of his life, but are earlier than those of Sophocles or Euripides. In the dramas of Aeschylus we do find significant and impressive roles for choruses, who may be the principal subject of the play (in Suppliants) or its most emotionally expressive feature (in Aeschylus: Seven Against Thebes (Ἑπτά ἐπὶ Θήβας)). Furthermore, we can trace some of the evolution of tragic drama, in the prominent relationships that do exist between the chorus and a major character on whom the chorus is reliant. So in Suppliants the Chorus relies on Danaus, and in Seven Against Thebes on Eteocles (Ἐτεοκλής), while in Agamemnon the Chorus is forced to look to Clytemnestra throughout, although it would prefer to have Agamemnon (Ἀγαμέμνων) as its ruler. This major relationship with a leading figure is retained in many later tragedies (by Sophocles, e.g., Antigone, Electra, and Euripides, e.g., Medea, Euripides: Trojan Women (Tρῳάδες)), and is perhaps the core of the original tension that emerged with impersonation by a single actor in response to a chorus. Very little is known of how the tragic chorus sang or danced. Images from Vase Painting as Evidence for Performance offer a tantalizing but frustrating glimpse of Greek dancers, whose motion and choreography remains hidden from us. Still less is known of sound, although the shape of songs and the kinds of rhythm can be detected from the surviving texts. The shape or structure is represented often in a system where one set of verses responds to another in Meter and Rhythm and extent (A1, A2, known as strophe and antistrophe), and may be followed in sequence by further responding sets (B1, B2, C1, C2, etc.). This system may then be terminated by a set of verses standing alone (known as an epode). It must be that in some way both the melody and the dancing for each responding pair were related, but modern speculations have been inconclusive in the almost total absence of any helpful evidence (Ley 2007: 167–73, for a review of some recent discussions). The chorus was accompanied by a piper, who played a reed-instrument with an extremely shrill sound, the aulos (see also Music and Musical Instruments; Performance). In the earlier decades of tragedy, the chorus numbered 12, but was later increased to 15 (Csapo and Slater 1995: 225, IV.3a). There are instances where indications in the text suggest that a dance may have been circular, and the tradition that the tragic chorus always sang and danced in a squared ranks is based on false etymological linkage between the word for “foursquare” (tetragōnos) and the word for the tragic (tragikos) chorus (Ley 2007: 126, n. 28). In terms of performance, the chorus might not only sing and dance with actors, but could also be involved in agitated action, with movement almost certainly sweeping across the open dancing-space of the orchēstra, in scenes of fear and flight or at times of pursuit. The choruses of the tragedies of Aeschylus provide good examples of this range, and certain kinds of rhythm (notably what is known as the dochmiac meter) have been identified by modern scholars as indicating agitation and excitement of this sort (see also Meter and Rhythm). This sense of the tragic chorus as emotive and unstable is a useful antidote to impressions that might be gained from choruses of elders, who are found repeatedly in a relatively staid state (see also Age: Old and Young). The tragic chorus is masked and costumed generically, forming a group against which the definition of individual characters may stand out, and that group is often of those who contrast with adult males of military age: in addition to elders, there are choruses of citizen or slave women, and of young unmarried women, with a recurrent interest in those who were non-Greek (see also Choruses; Female Choruses in Greek Tragedy). Almost all choruses are bound, through their status, in a relationship to leading characters, and this may result in their playing the role of confidante. In the broadest terms, tragic choral songs are best approached in terms of tone: so a song may clearly be a lament (Eur. Alc. 435–76) or a celebration for homecoming or victory (Eur. HF 763–814), and so we may detect that it is drawing on the other forms of choral song that were indicated previously. The songs are nearly always emotive and evocative responses to an initial situation or to what has emerged in the previous scene, and the reflections of the chorus may latch on to comparable examples drawn from myth. The chorus will also often pray or appeal to the gods, individually or in groups, directly for help to resolve a crisis (e.g., Aesch. Sept. 78–180), or by evoking what the chorus sees as a set of values sustained by the gods (e.g., Soph. OT 863–910). There may also be despair, when the gods seem to have deserted humans, but the chorus is an evocative rather than an all-knowing voice (see also Gods’ Role/Gods and Mortals). The tragic chorus is part of an immense participatory system of performance in classical and democratic Athens, which includes comedy and the satyr play as well as dithyramb. For the imagination of the philosopher Plato, in principle hostile to actual tragedy and its emotive impact on audiences, participation in idealized, solemn choruses was an essential component of a well-ordered state in Laws. For Athenians, the tragic chorus was a part of their lives (see also Plato and Tragedy). See also Aristotle and Euripidean Drama; Sophocles: Aristotle and Sophoclean Drama; Chorus and Citizenship; Features of Greek Tragedy; Greek Tragedy in the Fourth Century; Performance; Scholarship on Aeschylean Drama, Eighteenth Century to the Present; choruses under plays’ titles References Calame, C. 1977. Les choeurs de jeunes filles en Grèce archaïque. 2 vols. Rome: Edizioni dell'Ateneo & Bizzari. Published in English as Choruses of Young Women in Ancient Greece: Their Morphology, Religious Role, and Social Function, tr. D. Collins and J. Orion. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2001. Google Scholar Campbell, D.A. 1991. Greek Lyric III: Stesichorus, Ibycus, Simonides, and Others. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Google Scholar Csapo, E. and W.J. Slater. 1995. The Context of Ancient Drama. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press. CrossrefGoogle Scholar Ley, G. 2007. The Theatricality of Greek Tragedy. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. CrossrefGoogle Scholar Pickard-Cambridge, A.W. 1968. The Dramatic Festivals of Athens, 2nd edn. revised by J. Gould and D.M. Lewis. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Google Scholar Rutherford, I. 2001. Pindar's Paeans: A Reading of the Fragments with a Survey of the Form. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Google Scholar Van Gennep, A. 1960. The Rites of Passage. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Google Scholar Zimmermann, B. 1992. Dithyrambos: Geschichte einer Gattung. GÖttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht. CrossrefGoogle Scholar Further Reading H. Golder and S. Scully (eds.) 1995. The Chorus in Greek Tragedy and Culture, One. Special issue. Arion 3.1. Google Scholar Swift, L. 2010. The Hidden Chorus: Echoes of Genre in Tragic Lyric. Oxford: Oxford University Press. CrossrefGoogle Scholar Wilson, P.J. 2000. The Athenian Institution of the Khoregia: The Chorus, the City and the Stage . Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Google Scholar GRAHAM LEY The Encyclopedia of Greek TragedyBrowse other articles of this reference work:BROWSE BY TOPICBROWSE A-Z ReferencesRelatedInformation" @default.
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