Literary Remains, vol 2 | Page 6

the limits of mere mortal life, and force us into a presentiment, however dim, of a state in which those struggles of inward free will with outward necessity, which form the true subject of the tragedian, shall be reconciled and solved;--the entertainment or new comedy, on the other hand, remained within the circle of experience. Instead of the tragic destiny, it introduced the power of chance; even in the few fragments of Menander and Philemon now remaining to us, we find many exclamations and reflections concerning chance and fortune, as in the tragic poets concerning destiny. In tragedy, the moral law, either as obeyed or violated, above all consequences--its own maintenance or violation constituting the most important of all consequences--forms the ground; the new comedy, and our modern comedy in general, (Shakspeare excepted as before) lies in prudence or imprudence, enlightened or misled self-love. The whole moral system of the entertainment exactly like that of fable, consists in rules of prudence, with an exquisite conciseness, and at the same time an exhaustive fulness of sense. An old critic said that tragedy was the flight or elevation of life, comedy (that of Menander) its arrangement or ordonnance.
Add to these features a portrait-like truth of character,--not so far indeed as that a 'bona fide' individual should be described or imagined, but yet so that the features which give interest and permanence to the class should be individualized. The old tragedy moved in an ideal world,--the old comedy in a fantastic world. As the entertainment, or new comedy, restrained the creative activity both of the fancy and the imagination, it indemnified the understanding in appealing to the judgment for the probability of the scenes represented. The ancients themselves acknowledged the new comedy as an exact copy of real life. The grammarian, Aristophanes, somewhat affectedly exclaimed:--"O Life and Menander! which of you two imitated the other?" In short the form of this species of drama was poetry; the stuff or matter was prose. It was prose rendered delightful by the blandishments and measured motions of the muse. Yet even this was not universal. The mimes of Sophron, so passionately admired by Plato, were written in prose, and were scenes out of real life conducted in dialogue. The exquisite Feast of Adonis ([Greek (transliterated): Surakousiai ae Ad'oniazousai]) in Theocritus, we are told, with some others of his eclogues, were close imitations of certain mimes of Sophron--free translations of the prose into hexameters.
It will not be improper, in this place, to make a few remarks on the remarkable character and functions of the chorus in the Greek tragic drama.
The chorus entered from below, close by the orchestra, and there, pacing to and fro during the choral odes, performed their solemn measured dance. In the centre of the 'orchestra', directly over against the middle of the 'scene', there stood an elevation with steps in the shape of a large altar, as high as the boards of the 'logeion' or moveable stage. This elevation was named the 'thymele', ([Greek (transliterated): thumelae]) and served to recall the origin and original purpose of the chorus, as an altar-song in honour of the presiding deity. Here, and on these steps, the persons of the chorus sate collectively, when they were not singing; attending to the dialogue as spectators, and acting as (what in truth they were) the ideal representatives of the real audience, and of the poet himself in his own character, assuming the supposed impressions made by the drama, in order to direct and rule them. But when the chorus itself formed part of the dialogue, then the leader of the band, the foreman or 'coryphaeus', ascended, as some think, the level summit of the 'thymele' in order to command the stage, or, perhaps, the whole chorus advanced to the front of the orchestra, and thus put themselves in ideal connection, as it were, with the 'dramatis person?' there acting. This 'thymele' was in the centre of the whole edifice, all the measurements were calculated, and the semi-circle of the amphitheatre was drawn, from this point. It had a double use, a twofold purpose; it constantly reminded the spectators of the origin of tragedy as a religious service, and declared itself as the ideal representative of the audience by having its place exactly in the point, to which all the radii from the different seats or benches converged. In this double character, as constituent parts, and yet at the same time as spectators, of the drama, the chorus could not but tend to enforce the unity of place;--not on the score of any supposed improbability, which the understanding or common sense might detect in a change of place;--but because the senses themselves put it out of the power of any imagination to conceive a place coming to, and going away