THESPIS (6th cent. B.C.)

This article appears in Volume V26, Page 841 of the Encyclopedia Britannica.

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THESPIS (6th cent. B.C.) ,

Greek

GREEK
GREEK, ETRUSCAN AND

poet, of Icaria, in Attica, generally considered the inventor of tragedy, flourished in the time of the Peisistratidae. According to

Diogenes

DIOGENES

Laertius (iii. 56), he introduced for the first time in the old dithyrambic choruses a person distinct from the chorus, who conversed with the

leader

LEADER, BENJAMIN WILLIAMS (1831– )

, and was hence called Ur oxpeells (" answerer " ).3
a According to another explanation, he was so called from repeat, ing the words of anotherthe poet or composer. ,
His claim to be regarded as the inventor of tragedy in the true sense of the

term

TERM

depends upon the extent to which this person was really an " actor " (see DRAMA). Suidas gives the titles (of doubtful authenticity) of several of his plays (not confined to the legends of Dionysus, but embracing the whole

body

BODY

of heroic legends), but the fragments quoted in various writers as from Thespis are probably forgeries by Heracleides of Pontus. The statement of

Horace

HORACE [QuINTus HORATIUS FLACCUS] (65-8 B.C.)

(Ars Poetica, 276) that Thespis went round Attica with a cart, on which his plays were acted, is due to confusion between the origin of tragedy and comedy, and a

reminiscence

REMINISCENCE (from Lat. reminisci, to remember)

of the scurrilous jests which it was customary to utter from a waggon (axCa Tara dti rtr) at certain religious festivals. A. and M. Croiset (History of

Greek

GREEK
GREEK, ETRUSCAN AND

Literature, Eng. tr., 1904), who attach more importance to the

part

PART

played by Thespis in the development of tragedy, accept the testimony of

Horace

HORACE [QuINTus HORATIUS FLACCUS] (65-8 B.C.)

. According to them, Thespis, actor and manager, transported his apparatus on a cart to the deme in which he intended to produce his drama, formed and trained a chorus, and gave a representation in public.
See DRAMA; and W. Christ, Griechische Litteraturgeschichle
(1898).

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