I thought this section emphasized structure, too, Scott, and also, just as with music and poetry, the rhythms that are to be found within the structure, established in part by the interactions between the actor(s) and chorus, such as whether the chorus is moving in one direction or the other or, as with the Stasimon, remaining in place. (For poetry folks, it’s also interesting to consider that while in modern poetry, the rhythmic stresses fall on accented and unaccented syllables, in the ancients’ classical quantitative meter, rhythm was established by syllabic length – an anapaest was two short syllables followed by a long syllable, for example, as opposed to the modern foot, two unaccented followed by an accented one.) I wonder if in movies the cinematographer also doesn’t get to help set some of these rhythms sometimes – and indeed, even allow the camera to act as the chorus at times – via the choices of how and where to move the camera, and the varying lengths of the shots? When we follow the camera’s eye from left to right or right to left (just as the chorus used to traverse the stage), or whenever a shot lingers, holding still to show the audience an emotion that goes unspoken on a face? Or maybe by following the reactions of certain characters in response to the actions of others, just as the chorus at times reacted to the actor on the Greek stage? I think this even happens in literature sometimes – I thought of that moment in Denis Johnson’s astonishing novel Jesus’ Son (title nabbed from the late Lou Reed’s song “Heroin”), where the ne’er-do-well narrator, another orderly and other hospital staff witness a woman’s reaction to learning of her husband’s death in a car crash: “Down the hall came the wife. She was glorious, burning. She didn’t know yet that her husband was dead. We knew. That’s what gave her such power over us. The doctor took her into a room with a desk at the end of the hall, and from under the closed door a slab of brilliance radiated as if, by some stupendous process, diamonds were being incinerated in there. What a pair of lungs! She shrieked as I imagined an eagle would shriek. It felt wonderful to be alive hear it! I’ve gone looking for that feeling everywhere.” The ER as the stage upon which the actor - the wife - encounters tragedy, as witnessed by the chorus of staff, who in turn relay this news to the audience – the reader. And during this week of reading the tributes mourning the passing of Lou Reed, I also recalled a tribute a friend overheard once in Arkansas, spoken by two old soldiers attending the funeral of a third: “Welp. Cigarettes and whiskey finally killed the son of a bitch.” “Yep.” And how often, in the rhythm of such brief lamentations, there lies hidden a wealth of praise, if we just know where to listen. Because while they’d never articulate it like this, they knew: Such a brief outing here, on our one and only turn beneath the sun, the best we can do is tell entropy to go fuck itself and “rage against the dying of the light,” in whatever style of raging best suits us. (And there I go cussing again – sorry, Scott.)

In the beginning of Greek tragedy was the chorus, and only the chorus, a religious communal event for the benefit of the citizens of Athens. But as tragedy evolved so did the challenge of what to do with the Chorus. "The technical history of Greek Tragedy is largely an account of the efforts to make the Chorus an integral part of a continually changing system," wrote Greek scholar H.D.F. Kitto. Aristotle says in Chapter 19 of "The Poetics" that "The Chorus too should be regarded as one of the actors; it should be an integral part of the whole, and share in the action, in the manner not of Euripides but of Sophocles." Once again, Aristotle considers Sophocles as the go-to-guy for how to do tragedy right by his theory. (In more ways than two, Euripides, as the essayist and Greek translator Daniel Mendelsohn put it, was Aristotle's bad boy of Greek tragedy -- the Quentin Tarantino of his time, who had the talent and moxy to flout the rules even as he advanced the form.) So what was Aristotle's notion of how the Chorus should act? Sophocles did not use the Chorus as mere filler, nor as a mouthpiece. Rather, he integrated the Chorus as a supporting character. Yes, it is the voice of the community -- the polis-- commenting on the action of the protagonist (in contrast to Aeschylus who used the Chorus to focus on the theme). But further, Sophocle's Chorus can be a distinctly developed character with its own point of view. It illuminates complexities of the character and his predicament just was modern dramatists use allies, sidekicks, foils, etc. to reveal facets of the protagonist and the situation. (And modern lyricists and librettists use the Chorus in musicals.) As noted, the Chorus in the plays of Aeschylus do not fit well into Aristotle's assigned role for it -- sometimes, not at all. Ditto for Euripides. And Aeschylus and Euripides were not minor mediocrities. Which goes to show that "The Poetics" lays out a theory -- but not the final formula for how tragedy could be done effectively, even in Aristotle's day.

Euripides as the Tarantino of his time - an awesome analogy, thank you, pgronk!

What makes it difficult for us to appreciate the role of the Chorus is that we only have the words. We don't have the music or the dancing that were part of the Chorus's function. Kind of like trying to appreciate Mozart's "Magic Flute" with only the libretto. The words on the page may seem silly. But music, ah, the music is divine and explains all.

And Lou Reed to complete the holy trinity of awesome bad boys! Thank you, Melanie!

So, once again, Aristotle is being confusing and unclear. But if you take this chapter apart and then reassemble it, what seems likely is that the parts listed -- Prologue, Episode, Exode, and Choral Song made up of Parode and Stasimon -- were ordered something like this: Prologue Parode Stasimon Episode Parode Stasimon Exode Or maybe there were several rounds of Parode, Stasimon and Episode functioning as a series of scenes in which the drama unfolded. But since Aristotle rather dashes off this accounting of component parts, I’m not sure he would consider Prologue and Exode as entirely fulfilling the structural function of Beginning and End so critical to his view of Tragedy. Thus, I would not make a direct correlation between Prologue, Episode and Exode as our Act I, Act II, Act III. As for the function of the chorus, drama historians tell us that stories were originally told entirely by the chorus until one fateful day when a guy named Thespis stepped out in front to act out the story and Greek Tragedy was born. Then a second guy stepped out and they acted out a scene between them. Then, if I remember right, Sophocles was the one who added a third actor, and so on. At some point much later, the actors took over and the chorus disappeared and, thus, was handed down to us the drama we have today. But in Aristotle’s time, the actors were still sharing the stage with the chorus. Here’s my theory as to why: there was still a prevalent belief that the audience from time to time needed a few things explained to them. The radical idea that actors brought with them was that a story could be told and understood by witnessing it represented in action, as opposed to simply being described in words. But it was not yet believed that the entire story could be communicated this way. The Greek dramatists still thought it necessary to step back from the action from time to time to have the chorus fill in a few details, or give some context or commentary because otherwise the audience would get confused or lost or not be able to figure out what’s going on. We now know differently. Today’s audience can follow a story through action just fine. And a skilled dramatist knows how to utilize all the benefits of action to get their story across. Indeed, we are so thoroughly acclimated to absorbing stories through observing them being acted out that its difficult to appreciate what a new and novel idea it was at one point.