Chorus in Drama: Origin, Definition, Features

 The term “Chorus” was first used in the mid 16^th century. The word comes from a Greek term “Koros” via Latin language. Chorus means a group of singers. It is an ancient device used in the olden Greek plays.

In the ancient times, Greek tragedy had choral performances, in which a group of 50 men danced and sang dithyrambs (lyric hymns in praise of the God Dionysus.) Later, during the 5^th century BC an element of dialogue was added to these choral performances and actors were now introduced on the stage. The number of men singing in the Chorus was reduced to 12 to 15. Aeschylus and  Sophocles were the ancient Greek playwrights who used this dramatic device in their plays. In English Elizabethan drama, Chorus meant a single or hardly 3 to 5 singers who used to come on the stage in the prologues and epilogue as found in ‘Doctor Faustus’ by Marlowe.

The purpose of the Greek chorus was to provide background and summary information to the audience to help them understand what was going on in the performance. They introduced the theme and major characters of the play. (Sutradhar in Sanskrit literature) Chorus also expresses the moral messages at the end. It provides entertainment to the audience (music & dance) when there is too much of tension on the stage. It is used to provide time for scene changes and give the principle actors a break.

 

Plays of the ancient Greek theatre always included a chorus that offered a variety of background and summary information to help the audience follow the performance. They commented on themes, and, as August Wilhelm Schlegel proposed in the early 19th century to subsequent controversy, demonstrated how the audience might react to the drama. According to Schlegel, the Chorus is "the ideal spectator", and conveys to the actual spectator "a lyrical and musical expression of his own emotions, and elevates him to the region of contemplation". In many of these plays, the chorus expressed to the audience what the main characters could not say, such as their hidden fears or secrets. The chorus often provided other characters with the insight they needed.

Some historians argue that the chorus was itself considered to be an actor.^[5] Scholars have considered Sophocles to be superior to Euripides in his choral writing. Of the two, Sophocles also won more dramatic contests. His chorus passages were more relevant to the plot and more integrated in tragedies, whereas the Euripidean choruses seemingly had little to do with the plot and were often bystanders. Aristotle stated in his Poetics:

"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, not in the manner of Euripides but of Sophocles".^[7]

The chorus represents, on stage, the general population of the particular story, in sharp contrast with many of the themes of the ancient Greek plays which tended to be about individual heroes, gods, and goddesses. They were often the same sex as the main character. In Aeschylus' Agamemnon, the chorus comprises the elderly men of Argos, whereas in Euripides' The Bacchae, they are a group of eastern bacchantes, and in Sophocles' Electra, the chorus represents the women of Argos. In Aeschylus' The Eumenides, however, the chorus takes the part of a host of avenging Furies.