![]() ![]() Some tragedies, including two early surviving tragedies of Aeschylus ( Persians of 472 BCE and Supplices- “Suppliants”-of 463 BCE), dispense with the Prologue, but the Prologue seems to be a permanent fixture of Greek tragedy by the 450’s. An Episode may include several character entrances and exits (distinguish the modern drama concepts of Acts and Scenes.) ![]() First Episode (Greek ἐπείσοδιον another word with general meaning, but in discussing drama a technical meaning referring to a dialogue section in a drama between choral songs.Parodos (an Ancient Greek term (ἡ πάροδος, from παρά, meaning-among other things- “by, beside, alongside,” and ὁδος, “way”) which has general meanings in Greek, but also technical meanings (as set out in Liddell-Scott-Jones’ lexicon ) including (a) the first entrance of the chorus in a drama and (b) the first choral section of a drama.).So the structure in many tragedies runs on the pattern: The intermediate choral sections are usually termed stasima (that is the neuter plural adjective inflected as a neuter adjective that functions as a noun, the singular is stasimon, τὸ στάσιμον “the stationary”)-to answer “stationary what?” we can understand an unspoken neuter noun like melos for the meaning “song sung while the Chorus is stationary, in place”). The Parodos (the Chorus’ “way on/way to”) is the name of this first song (or song sequence) of the Chorus which is delivered presumably sung or chanted as the Chorus makes its entrance into the “ orchestra” (the pit in front of the proscenium, or stage from which the individual actors hold forth).Įxodos (“way out”-the Greek word from which we get the modern word “exodus”) is the matching term for exit of the chorus, all that is said, sung, or done by the Chorus and the characters left on stage after the Chorus’ last stasimon. It may be followed by a transitional section (in speechverse and/or lyric meter) which transitions into the first major choral song verse section in lyric meters, the Parodos. The Prologue, or opening speech, introduces the situation and theme, typically a soliloquy or dialogue in iambic trimeters. (More on lyric meters in tragedy below in the overview of meter.) The choral lyric sections are found in a variety of traditional meters, some of which bulk large in surviving Ancient Greek lyric poetry such as Pindar’s victory odes and the lyric poetry of Sappho and Alcaeus. The dialogue sections are in typically speechverse, usually iambic trimeters or, less often, trochaic tetrameters (more on these two meters below, in an overview of meter)-but sometimes there are other meters in dialogue sections, such as short subsections in meters associated with lyric poetry. (There are exceptions, and technical divisions naturally do not explain intellectual and emotional “soft power” aspects of a great Greek tragedy.) The typical structure of an Ancient Greek tragedy is a series of alternating dialogue and choral lyric sections. There are different terms for different parts of a Greek drama, some of which modern scholars took from Aristotle and other ancient drama critics.
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