Scaife ATLAS

CTS Library / Poetics

Poetics (4.14-4.18)

urn:cts:greekLit:tlg0086.tlg034.perseus-eng2:4.14-4.18
Refs {'start': {'reference': '4.14', 'human_reference': 'Chapter 4 Subchapter 14'}, 'end': {'reference': '4.18', 'human_reference': 'Chapter 4 Subchapter 18'}}
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At any rate it originated in improvisationboth tragedy itself and comedy. The one came from the prelude[*] to the dithyramb and the other from the prelude to the phallic songs which still survive as institutions in many cities.

Tragedy then gradually evolved as men developed each element that came to light and after going through many changes, it stopped when it had found its own natural form.

Thus it was Aeschylus who first raised the number of the actors from one to two. He also curtailed the chorus and gave the dialogue the leading part. Three actors and scene-painting Sophocles introduced.

Then as to magnitude.

20
Being a development of the Satyr play,[*] it was quite late before tragedy rose from short plots and comic diction to its full dignity, and that the iambic metre was used instead of the trochaic tetrameter.

At first they used the tetrameter because its poetry suited the Satyrs and was better for dancing, but when dialogue was introduced, Nature herself discovered the proper metre. The iambic is indeed the most conversational of the metres,

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