Vanessa Stovall, University of Vermont
This presentation will consider a new geometric theory around the intertextual nexus in the musical design of 5th century Greek tragedy. This “coronal” nexus is formed from four areas of choral composition–in metrical design (Scott 1984), pitch accents (Conser 2021), geometric formalism (Franklin 2013), and metamusical themes in lyric (Weiss 2018). This theory will illustrate–with visuals–how the songs of tragedy fit into their plays not only in their sequential order, but in interwoven patterns across the soundtrack which create new networks of meaning. This coronal musical structure embodies the poetics of competition that these dramatic poets were engaging in as they each competed for crowns of victory: it is the crown which forms such a potent musical metaphor throughout their lyrics, passed down to the dramatic poets from the earlier traditions of lyric competition (Steiner 1986).
The first half of the presentation will analyze the interwoven musical design across three mid 5th century plays: Aeschylus’ Agamemnon, Sophocles’ Antigone, and Euripides’ Medea. Each analysis will show how the different coronal connections enhance the themes presented within its respective play. The intertwined song pattern of the Agamemnon helps to foreshadow the antistrophic structure that the play engages in as a framework for Choephoroi. The epicentric sequence of songs in the soundtrack of the Antigone focalizes the titular character’s kommos with the chorus at the midpoint of the play as an embodiment of the middle string of a lyre, which controls the tuning of the instrument. The polarized songs of the Medea emphasize the Corinthian chorus’ commentary around the development of musical genres throughout their soundtrack.
The second half of the presentation will apply this theory to two plays from the same trilogy in the late 5th century–Euripides’ Bacchae and Iphigenia in Aulis–in order to illuminate the shared nexus of information across the choruses. In an abbreviated read of the first three stasima of each play, the intertextual nexus across the soundtracks shows how the two choruses share information around their consideration of the gods and different forms of music. In each chorus’ quest for finding elsewhere–the bacchants heading from Sardis to Thebes and the newlyweds heading from Chalcis to Aulis–they’re additionally able to find elsewhere within the coronal chorality of their lyric nexus. These intertextual extensions from the choruses of the Bacchae and Iphigenia in Aulis illustrate how this theory may be used to understand the connections across trilogies that do not have plot-contiguous structures. To conclude, this presentation will offer strategies towards how coronal chorality and intertextual extensions may be useful in providing new ways of engaging students with Greek choral lyric both academically and artistically.