This eBook was produced by Juliet Sutherland, William Koven,
Charles Franks and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team
Translated By
1893
Greek drama, forerunner of ours, had its origin in the festival ofDionysus, god of wine, which was celebrated with dance, song, andrecitative. The recitative, being in character, was improved into theDrama, the chief author of the improvement, tradition says, beingThespis. But the dance and song were retained, and became the Chorus,that peculiar feature of the Greek play. This seems to be the generalaccount of the matter, and especially of the combination of the lyricwith the dramatic element, so far as we can see through the mist of anunrecorded age.
Thirlwall, still perhaps the soundest and most judicious, though notthe most vivid or enthusiastic, historian of Greece, traces the originof the Drama to "the great choral compositions uniting the attractionsof music and action to those of a lofty poetry, which formed thefavourite entertainment of the Dorian cities." This, he says, appearsto have been the germ out of which, by the introduction of a newelement, the recitation of a performer who assumed a character andperhaps from the first shifted his mask, so as to exhibit the outlinesof a simple story in a few scenes parted by the intervening song ofthe Chorus, Thespis and his successors unfolded the Attic Tragedy. Ofthe further development of the Drama in the age of Pericles, Thirlwallsays:—
"The drama was the branch of literature which peculiarly signalisedthe age of Pericles; and it belongs to the political, no less than tothe literary, history of these times, and deserves to be considered inboth points of view. The steps by which it was brought through aseries of innovations to the form which it presents in its earliestextant remains, are still a subject of controversy among antiquarians;and even the poetical character of the authors by whom these changeswere effected, and of their works, is involved in great uncertainty.We have reason to believe that it was no want of merit, or of absoluteworth, which caused them to be neglected and forgotten, but only thesuperior attraction of the form which the drama finally assumed. OfPhrynichus in particular, the immediate predecessor of Aeschylus, weare led to conceive a very favourable opinion, both by the manner inwhich he is mentioned by the ancients who were acquainted with hispoems, and by the effect which it is recorded to have produced uponhis audience. It is clear that Aeschylus, who found him in undisputedpossession of the public favour, regarded him as a worthy rival, andwas in part stimulated by emulation to unfold the capacities of theircommon art by a variety of new inventions. These, however, were soimportant as to entitle their author to be considered as the father ofAttic tragedy. This title he would have deserved, if he had onlyintroduced the dialogue, which distinguished his drama from that ofthe preceding poets, who had told the story of each piece in a seriesof monologues. So long as this was the case, the lyrical part musthave created the chief interest; and the difference between the Attictragedy and the choral songs which were exhibited in a similar mannerin the Dorian cities was perhaps not so striking as their agreement.The innovation made by Aeschylus altered the whole character of thepoem; raised the purely dramatic portion from a subordinate to theprincipal rank, and expanded it