Studying Aristotle’s “Poetics” — Part 12: Prologue, Episode, Exode and Chorus

As I’ve been interviewing screenwriters, I typically ask what some of their influences are. One book title comes up over and over again: Aristotle’s “Poetics.” I confess I’ve never read the entire thing, only bits and pieces. So I thought, why not do a daily series to provide a structure to compel me to go through it. That way we’d all benefit from the process.

For background on Aristotle, you can go here to see an article on him in the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy.

To download “Poetics,” you can go here.

Part 12: Prologue, Episode, Exode and Chorus

The parts of Tragedy which must be treated as elements of the whole
have been already mentioned. We now come to the quantitative parts-
the separate parts into which Tragedy is divided- namely, Prologue,
Episode, Exode, Choric song; this last being divided into Parode and
Stasimon. These are common to all plays: peculiar to some are the
songs of actors from the stage and the Commoi.

The Prologue is that entire part of a tragedy which precedes the Parode
of the Chorus. The Episode is that entire part of a tragedy which
is between complete choric songs. The Exode is that entire part of
a tragedy which has no choric song after it. Of the Choric part the
Parode is the first undivided utterance of the Chorus: the Stasimon
is a Choric ode without anapaests or trochaic tetrameters: the Commos
is a joint lamentation of Chorus and actors. The parts of Tragedy
which must be treated as elements of the whole have been already mentioned.
The quantitative parts- the separate parts into which it is divided-
are here enumerated.

Let me just acknowledge up front: I’m reaching out to our honored group of Aristotelians to provide a deeper context and analysis of how Greek plays operated thousands of years ago as the specifics listed here are largely outside my realm of study. However, I do have three musings on this section:

— Contemporary screenplays and ancient Greek tragedies have this in common: They are both heavily structured. While a screenplay’s structure would seem to be tied to it being — at some point — a blueprint to make a movie, as I thought about it more, it seemed to me there might be more of a parallel to Greek plays in this respect: Back then as well as today, audiences would bring a certain set of expectations about what they would see and hear, even down to the order of the narrative. While a modern screenplay doesn’t precisely parallel the structure of a Greek tragedy, the overall arc may be quite similar in telling a story with a Beginning, Middle and End.

Is it too simplistic to think of it this way:

Prologue = Act I
Episode = Act II
Exode = Act III

My guess: Probably. I look forward to more feedback from our resident experts.

— As I understand it, the chorus was a major component of ancient Greek tragedies. Indeed if I recall correctly from my college studies, plays of that era were often heavily musical. I have written previously about classical music’s sonata form and how there is a parallel between its three parts and three act structure:

Exposition = Act I
Development = Act II
Recapitulation = Act III

So there is precedence for a connection between music structure and screenplay structure. But what of the chorus in contemporary filmmaking? If one of its functions is to convey key exposition to the audience, might a parallel to today be flashbacks, flash-forwards, dreams, memories, and the like? Or perhaps voiceover narration? Essentially any device that ‘breaks into’ the narrative to convey key information?

This gets down to what the underlying function of the chorus was and I hope our Aristotelians will provide some clarity on that front.

Bottom line from my reading of this part of “Poetics”: I come away inclined to see more commonality between storytelling then and storytelling today, at least insofar as screenplays are concerned.

How about you?

A reminder: I am looking at “Poetics” through the lens of screenwriting, what is its relevance to the craft in contemporary times. And I welcome the observations of any Aristotle experts to set me straight as I’m just trying to work my way through this content the best I can.

See you tomorrow for another installment of this series.

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For the entire series, go here.