Choral Voice and Narrative in the First Stasimon of Aeschylus "Agamemnon"

Abstract

WHOSE VOICE DO WE HEAR in a choral ode? For many it is the voice of the and if we define the poet as the speaker of truth and ultimate narrative authority, we can indeed hear the chorus making authorial-sounding comments.1 But does the chorus always speak the truth? The chorus is in the drama, and has a well-defined persona which often reveals a limited understanding of dramatic events.2 Does this mean then that everything it says derives from its role as a character in the drama, that it has no privileged insight into events? The answer, of course, lies somewhere in between: the chorus speaks sometimes as a character, sometimes on behalf of the poet, that invisible, controlling force who creates the drama. Still, it is not always evident whether the chorus is speaking as a unified personality at a given point in a choral ode, or whether it articulates the views of the poet himself.3 Indeed, can we talk about the chorus as a single character, when in fact it is a collective entity? And what exactly are the signals that the poet is using the chorus as his mouthpiece? As Goldhill (1992: 20) so aptly puts