The Greek Chorus

The Greek chorus was an essential part of Greek life. It varied in scale from the tiny festival conducted by the family to the choruses of fifty men or boys which competed in honour of Dionysos at Athens, and in tone from the songs in honour of athletic victories to the solemn tragic choruses of Aeschylus or the comic choruses of Aristophanes. By means of the surviving texts and pictures, and the accounts of ancient authors. Its history can be traced from pre-Greek times to the Hellenistic age.

Originally published in 1970, this book is primarily concerned to relate the history of the dance, an aspect of the chorus which had so far been inadequately presented. The author describes the visual appearance of the chorus on Greek vases and reliefs from the eighth to the fourth century B.C. He then discusses the choral performances themselves, with reference to the literary sources, and emphasis is given here to the development of the metre, which was fundamental in providing the rhythm for words, music and dance. In some cases, where we have both textual and pictorial evidence, we can visualize the chorus and at the same time discover the tempo of their dance.

The interplay of the traditional and the original is of great importance to the development of the Greek chorus. Professor Webster explains how far the Greek chorus was based on tradition, when and where innovations were made, and to what extent different types of chorus influenced each other.