Chorus Lines

My discussion explores the coincidence between catalogues and choruses in the early poetic repertoire, observing how choral ensembles regularly perform lists in both hexameter and lyric sources. Drawing on representations of choruses in archaic and early classical texts and vase imagery, I suggest that this association may in large part depend on the morphology common to both phenomena; continuities exist in the makeup of the group, the interactions between its different members, its organization, formations, and movements through space. Close readings of passages from the Iliad, Bacchylides and Corinna more narrowly demonstrate the exchanges that go on between the two different performative traditions: while the diction, structure and thematics of hexameter catalogues indicate their affinity with and even derivation from publicly staged choral song and dance, the inventories embedded in lyric compositions incorporate stylistic conventions more native to hexameter poetry. Rather than assuming that the choral poets are the sole borrowers here, I propose a more complex and two-way trajectory between the genres, reflective of the fluidity and boundary-crossing between the different modes of performance

Art · Choir · Chorus · Diction · Literature · Poetry · Visual arts · Classical Antiquity Studies · Digital Humanities and Scholarship · Historical and Literary Studies

• Epistémologie et théologies

  Sylvie Perceau, Gabrièle Wersinger Taylor•Archiv für Religionsgeschichte•2023

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