(Gk.: ‘tragedy’).
An ancient Greek musical-dramatic form in which a mythical or, occasionally, an historical story is treated in a serious (as opposed to comic) manner in dialogue, song and dance. The most acclaimed composers of ancient Greek tragedy were Aeschylus, Sophocles and Euripides, all of whom lived in Athens in the 5th century bce. Although major developments in the form and conventions of tragedy are associated with the Theatre of Dionysus in Athens, and the authors of the surviving tragedies are Athenian, there is no reason to suppose that tragedy originated exclusively in that city. The ancient writers who commented on the origins of tragedy attribute important innovations to poets from other parts of the Greek world. For example, Arion of Methymna is credited in the Suda with developments in early drama, although such developments also appear to be bound up with early dithyramb; and Aristotle (Poetics) noted that the practice of composing plots reportedly came from Sicily.
Despite a lack of clarity surrounding its origins, classical commentators nevertheless agree that the genre arose out of choral performance. The word tragōidia is derived from tragōidoi, which originally signified the members of a chorus in a tragedy and later came to mean, variously, all the performers, the tragic performance or contest as a whole, or tragic poets. Moreover, Aristotle reported that tragedy was originally all choral and that Thespis was the first to add an actor; Aeschylus later added a second actor and then Sophocles a third (Themistius, 26.316d). The higher proportion of choral music in the earlier tragedies also supports choral origin. Over time, however, as dramatic and musical possibilities opened up (the presence of two or three actors on the stage at a given time created new opportunities for action and dialogue between characters), speech and monody gradually increased, the number of choral segments diminished, and the main action also tended to shift away from the chorus, which would sometimes function as spectator and commentator rather than as a real participant in the drama. In fact, from the late 5th century bce, the choral interludes (stasima) of authors such as Agathon and his imitators were unconnected with the plot; known as embolima, these interludes could be transferred from one play to another. The number of choral portions also diminished as melodic and rhythmic complexity increased. It appears that the changes in musical style affecting other genres originating in the later 5th century bce also found their way into tragedy. Complex melodies are more easily sung by single professional actors than by amateur choruses. Nevertheless, the choral portions were not wholly unaffected by this new style of music. Much of the evidence for musical change survives in the comments and discussions of philosophers such as Damon, Plato and the author of the Hibbeh Papyrus. Agathon and Euripides are two names often mentioned with regard to the new style of music in tragedy.
In the tragedies that survive complete or virtually so, the cast would usually consist of two or three actors, an aulos player to accompany the musical portions and a chorus of between 12 and 15 performers. The limited number of actors did not mean that there were only two or three speaking characters in the drama, but rather that two or three would be on stage at any given time. A single actor might play the parts of two or more characters, the use of masks precluding the possibility of confusion of identity. The leader of the chorus, the koruphaios, was responsible for the rhythm of the chorus and for giving the first note (endosimon). Sometimes the koruphaios or the chorus might be treated almost as an extra character and exchange dialogue with main characters. There were also various kinds of non-speaking character (attendants, captives etc.), as individual dramas required.
The following is a basic outline of the structure of a Greek tragedy. The drama would often begin with a prologue, consisting of monologue or dialogue, that provided a background to the action. The chorus, led by the aulos player and performing in a marching rhythm (usually anapaestic), would then make its entrance (parodos) and take up position, in square formation, within the orchēstra (i.e. the performing area; seeTheatron). A lyric ode was sung immediately afterwards. The bulk of the dramatic action took place in a series of episodes, which were not usually set to music but were composed in iambic trimeters (considered closest to the natural rhythm of speech). The episodes were separated by choral stasima, of which a typical tragedy would include at least three to five. The word stasimon, despite its derivation (from histēmi: ‘to stand’), does not indicate that the performers were standing still but that they were performing ‘in position’ rather than entering or exiting the performing area. The lyrical metres of stasima suggest dance rhythms, in contrast to the marching rhythm of the parodos and exodos. The usual metrical structure of a stasimon, in which a strophe and its exactly corresponding antistrophe are followed by an epode, indicates that the performers probably danced as well as sang, repeating the music and steps of the strophe exactly in the antistrophe. Unfortunately, ancient writers provide few details about the specific dances (emmeleia) or dance steps used in tragedy. Normally the chorus sang and danced as a whole, but it was sometimes divided into two semichoruses. There may have been other variations: for example, the third stasimon of Euripides' Hippolytus is thought by some to have been performed antiphonally by a main chorus of women and an extra chorus (parachorēgēma) of men. At or near the end of the play, the chorus departed, again led by the aulos player, while singing the exodos (‘exit’). As with the parodos, the exodos was set to a marching rhythm (anapaestic). Playwrights sometimes made the same exodos serve more than one play, perhaps indicating that the audience had begun to leave their seats before the play was quite over.
There was a greater variety of types of musical number than the foregoing general description might suggest. Actors often performed in recitative or lyrical monody (solo singing), such as in songs of lament or celebration; and the singing of a stasimon or other lyrical segment might alternate between character(s) and chorus rather than being confined to one or the other. As for the music itself, the few extant examples from ancient Greek tragedy, including fragments of Euripides' Orestes and Iphigenia in Aulis plus some unidentified and uncertain later fragments, provide but a few intriguing hints. The fragment from Orestes is in the enharmonic genus and Dorian or Phrygian mode; that from Iphigenia in Aulis is in the enharmonic genus and probably the Mixolydian mode. The musical scales found in these fragments are consistent with classical descriptions of the modes and genera predominant in 5th-century tragedy.
A.W. Pickard-Cambridge: Dithyramb, Tragedy and Comedy (Oxford, 1927, rev. 2/1962 by T.B.L. Webster)
A.W. Pickard-Cambridge: The Theatre of Dionysus in Athens (Oxford, 1946)
A.W. Pickard-Cambridge: The Dramatic Festivals of Athens (Oxford, 1953, rev. 2/1968 by J. Gould and D.M. Lewis)
W.C. Scott: Musical Design in Aeschylean Theater (Hanover, NH, 1984)
J. Herington: Poetry into Drama: Early Tragedy and the Greek Poetic Tradition (Berkeley, 1985)
J.J. Winkler and F.I.Zeitlin: Nothing to Do with Dionysos? Athenian Drama in its Social Context (Princeton, NJ, 1990)
Tragedy, Comedy and the Polis: Nottingham 1990, ed. A.H. Somerstein and others (Bari, 1993)
E. Csapo and W.J.Slater: The Context of Ancient Drama (Ann Arbor, MI, 1995)
W.C. Scott: Musical Design in Sophoclean Theater (Hanover, NH, 1996)
DENISE DAVIDSON GREAVES