Visions and Emotions of Dionysian Life: On the Evolution of the Greek Chorus

While his plot-centered theory of tragedy is well-known and influential, Aristotle can be seen as lacking in his explanation of the spirit of tragedy. Nietzsche, on the other hand, who views the dithyrambic origin as the essence of Greek tragedy, offers a more convincing response to the classical question of why tragedy pleases. Following Nietzsche's theory, this essay explores how the chorus, a specific manifestation of dithyrambic music, has evolved from the Hellenic period to the modern world, in the works of great poets who continue the Dionysian spirit in reinvented forms of the chorus. The essay's argument is divided into four parts:(1) In the context of Greek tragedy's origins in Dionysian worship culture, the essay explains why the pleasure of tragedy is a paradox and shows how earlier forms of the chorus are expressions of the visionary power of the Dionysian as the cyclical life force in the universe;(2) From the perspective of Nietzsche's aesthetics of a Dionysian-Apollonian interactive duality, the essay examines how intense emotions of awe and rapture occur simultaneously in moments when the principium individuationis(the principle of individuation) merges into the infinite Dionysian life;(3) The essay then explains that in works of tragedy, the "I," supported by the chorus, is in effect the vocal expression of Dionysian life-subsequently, some of the most moving soliloquys in Shakespeare's tragedies(such as in Hamlet and Macbeth) can be seen as changed forms of Greek chorus;(4) Finally, the essay examines selected passages from William Faulkner's Light in August and Virginia Woolf's Mrs. Dalloway, and shows their choral nature as transformations of the Greek chorus in modern fiction. In sum, the essay argues that the "I" in tragedy is not the subjective "I":the emotions are not personal, but are rather invoked from the Dionysian vision of life. A suffering individual therefore sings dithyrambic songs as an intoxicated individual who has been baptized in the Dionysian ocean. Such is the spirit of tragedy which informs the chorus and its evolution.