the Chorus:

aka Greek chorus, a homogeneous, non-individualised group of performers, between 12 and 50 players, who comment with a collective voice on the dramatic action; they may dance, sing or speak lines in unison, Greek theatre always included a chorus that offering background & summary information to help the audience; they represent the general population of the particular story.

 

ήθος:

Greek, the ethos or underlying sentiment that informs the beliefs, customs or practices of a group, which is what the chorus represents & enforces on the actor; hence the chorus is the heart of the tragedy, without it the actor can become an individual rather than a role player.

 

soliloquy (in drama):

device often used in drama when a character speaks to themselves, relating thoughts & feelings, thereby also sharing them with the audience, giving the illusion of unspoken reflections; if other characters are present, they keep silent and/or are disregarded by the speaker.

 

Philoctetes (drama):

Greek hero, famed as an archer & a participant in the Trojan War.  He was the subject of 4 different  Greek tragedies (by Sophocles, Euripides & Aeschylus); only the work of Sophocles survived; it was performed in 409 BC at the city Dionysia.

 

Trachinire (drama):

aka Women of Trachis, tragedy by Sophocles, performed 425 BC; considered inferior to his other works; the story is a about Heracles & his wife Deianeira.  She fears he is cheating on her & tries to insure his fidelity by sending him a robe dipped in the blood of Nessus the Centaur.  Nessus had told her years ago that his blood would act as a love potion.  In fact it is a deadly poison.  When Heracles puts on the robe he begins dying, the poison eating his skin.  Deianeira hears of this & commits suicide.  Heracles ends his life burned on a pyre.

 

Belvedere Apollo: * see EndNote<A>

celebrated marble sculpture of Antiquity, because it has distinctively Roman foot-wear, it is believed

to be an original Roman re-creation rather than a copy of a Greek original.

 

monologue (in drama):

speech presented by a single character, often to express their mental thoughts aloud, sometimes to directly address another character or the audience.  Monologues are common across the range of dramatic media (plays, films), as well as poetry. Monologues are similar to soliloquies, apostrophes, and asides.

 

Tasso:

1544-95, Italian poet famous for his Jerusalem Delivered, 1581 which depicts an imaginative version of the combat at the end of the First Crusade, during the Siege of Jerusalem.  The poet suffered from mental illness & died just before he was due to be crowned on the Capitoline Hill as the king of poets by the Pope.  His work was widely translated and adapted, and has been one of the most widely read poets in Europe.

and see Chapter III page 101 and Chapter VIII page 264

 

Don Quixote:

see Chapter I, page 31, chapter III, page 101, Chapter IX page 318

 

Werther:

see Chapter I, page 14, Chapter III page 101, Chapter VIII page 264 and Chapter IX page 318

 

Wolfram von Eschenbach (Parzeval):

see Chapter IV, pages 142, Chapter VI page 186, and above page 319

 

Walther von der Vogelweide:

1170-1230, a travelling singer who composed and performed Minnesang (medieval German love songs) & political songs in Middle High German; he performed at various princely courts in Germany, in particle at the Babenberg court in Vienna; in his later life he was given a small fief by Emperor Frederick II.  Considered the greatest German lyrical poet before Goethe; his hundred or so love-songs are regarded as the pinnacle of Minnesang; his innovations breathed new life into this tradition.  He is also the first political poet writing in German, with a considerable body of encomium, satire, invective, and moralising.

 

Goethe (lyric verse):

Although more famous for his novels & plays (Werther, Wilhelm Meister, Faust) between 1771- 1823 Goethe wrote 14 major poems, the most important being:

• the idyll of Hermann and Dorothea (an epic poem)

• the Roman Elegies (a cycle of 24 poems)

• the West-Eastern Diwan (a collection of poems in the Persian style, influenced by Hafez)

His poetic work served as a model for the Innerlichkeit ("introversion") movement in Germany, an idea further developed by Heine among others.  His poetry inspired a number of compositions by Mozart, Beethoven, Schubert, Berlioz and Wolf.

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poems (modern, as monologue:

a monologue poem (aka a dramatic monologue or a persona poem) features a single speaker who is a fictional character distinct from the poet. Although earlier versions of the form exist, this form first rose to prominence in the work of Victorian poet Robert Browning.  However this is not what Spengler is trying to drive home.  He is contrasting Western poetry as private, often interior, as against what he saw as the public nature of Greek drama & lyrical poetry.

 

Classical lyric (recited):

body of poetry in the dialects of Ancient Greek, early 7th to the early 5th centuries BC, (a period called the "Lyric Age of Greece") although similar forms continued to be written in later periods.  It is considered 1 of 3 broad categories of poetry (along with drama & epic) & is the product of the political, social & intellectual milieu of the Greek polis.  Most of this art is occasional poetry, composed for public or private performance by a soloist or chorus to mark an occasions.  The symposium ("drinking party") was one such setting.  Sometimes a string or wind instrument would accompany the performance although the poetry could also be sung without accompaniment

 

Eleusinian Mysteries (as nocturnal): * see EndNote<B>

The Eleusinian Mysteries had various celebrations & some of these involved rites & revelry at night.

 

Thracian festival (nocturnal):

probably a reference to the Cotyttia, an orgiastic, nocturnal religious festival in celebration of Kotys, the goddess of sex, considered an aspect of Persephone.  It originated with the Edones (a Thracian people) as a celebration of the rape of Persephone.  Throughout Thrace it was celebrated secretly in the hills at night, and was notorious for its obscenity and insobriety.  Through commerce the festival eventually spread to Athens, Corinth & Chios.

 

art of Thespis (in full sunlight):

reference to Greek plays performed during the City Dionysia, a festival held 10-16th of Elaphebolion (a lunar month straddling the vernal equinox, March or April), late winter or early spring.  The performances were given in the daylight; the climate at this time of year was suitable for stage performances.  The actors wore heavy costumes & masks, and performing required strenuous physical & vocal exertion.  Such activity was impractical in hot weather.

 

Shakespeare (performance time):

performances in the Elizabethan era, in public theatres, like Shakespeare’s Globe, took place in the afternoon with no artificial lighting, but when, in the course of a play, the light began to fade, candles were lit.  In the enclosed private theatres (like the Blackfriars) artificial lighting was used throughout.

 

Goethe (performance times in his day his time):

Goethe was born in 1749 & died in 1832.  Despite the problems associated with interior candle light (such as fires, inconvenience, smoke, manual igniting, cost) concerts in the 18th century used candlelight, started at 8 pm and lasted until midnight.  Artificial lighting did not make its appearance until the 19th century.  Gas lighting was first used for concerts in London in 1817 and by mid-century it was commonplace.  Edison’s light bulb was invented in 1879 & by the 1880s incandescent lighting was commercially viable.