The evaluation of lyric structures has been crucial in creating the history of Greek tragedy. Aristotle did not consider the chorus a necessary element of tragedy; therefore, its presence in drama had to be justified. On the other hand, Aristotle argued that tragedy originated not just in dithyramb but also in epirrhematic dialogues between chorus and actors {Poetics 1449a11). Aristotle is thus able to describe the history of tragic structures as a struggle between the irrational heritage of tradition, involving the overwhelming presence of the chorus, and the artistic urge to create an organic whole in which all elements are indispensable.
The chorus has a large role in Aeschylus; in the lyric sections, it sings between 35 percent {Libation Bearers) and 55 percent {Suppliants) of the lines. Prometheus Bound is exceptionally sparing in choral lyric sections {13 percent). This is close to some of the figures for Sophocles {Electra: 11 percent) and Euripides {Medea: 19 percent; see Griffith 1977, 123). In Euripides’ later plays the proportion of song to speech does not change much overall: actors’ songs make up for the diminished role ofchoral lyric {Csapo 1999-2000, 410-12, with figures).
Aeschylus’ tragic predecessors were evidently even more lavish in their use of choral lyric. According to Aristotle, Aeschylus ‘‘reduced the choral sections and gave the most important role to speech’’ - that is, to the recited lines of the actors (Aristotle, Poetics 1449a17-18). The process of‘‘naturalization’’ of choral parts continued in Sophocles, but in a different way. According to Aristotle, Sophocles integrates the chorus in the action, treating it as ‘‘one of the actors,’’ whereas Euripides is less successful in this respect (Poetics 1456a25-27). Some authors of the late fifth century composed choral sections that have no relevance to the action; Aristotle calls them embolima, ‘‘something added in, intercalated’’ (Poetics 1456a29). These embolima parallel a development in fourth-century comedy, whereby choral sections become completely immaterial to the plot. Manuscripts do not give the text of these choral sections, but simply insert the indication ‘‘a song of the chorus’’ (chorou [melos] or similar phrases) where a choral lyric was required (Hunter 1979). Papyri of some late tragic texts seem to present the same phenomenon (West 1982, 80 n. 10).
Aristotle gives us a neat pattern: Aeschylus and Sophocles struggle in different ways to solve the problem of the chorus; Euripides is less successful, and some other late fifth-century authors attempt a wrong solution: they marginalize it by making the chorus sing decorative lyric pieces. In the nineteenth and twentieth centuries many scholars, especially in Germany, studied the evolution of tragic forms in detail. They accepted Aristotle’s assumptions and combined them with the Platonic critique of the so-called New Music, an innovative musical and poetical style that became popular in the last twenty years of the fifth century (see Csapo 1999-2000 and Wilson, chapter 12 in this volume). It has been argued that the style of late Euripidean lyrics is in some ways ‘‘decadent,’’ ‘‘decorative,’’ or ‘‘empty’’; the lyrics become some sort of libretto for an artificial style of music, aimed at showing off the virtuoso qualities of the singers. Similarly, the non-lyric dialogues in late works by Euripides supposedly became more schematic and rigid (Schadewaldt 1926, 104-8), in contrast to Sophocles, who attuned his dialogic forms to the needs of the action.
Some of these assumptions are dubious, and the idea of a linear progression is untenable. A radical revision is needed. As we will see, Aeschylus and Sophocles were not less bold than Euripides in manipulating the conventions they inherited from non-dramatic choral genres. Aristophanes describes Euripides as an innovator and Aeschylus as an old-fashioned classic, and his view strongly influenced the scholarly tradition, both ancient and modern. Aristophanes’ point, however, does not imply that Aeschylus was simply reproducing ‘‘reality’’ or ‘‘tradition,’’ nor that Euripides was an isolated avant-garde artist.
World History
