The power of interjection in tragic performance
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Abstract
In Frogs 1028, Dionysus states that he rejoyced when Aeschylus in the Persians lamented for the death of Darius, and the chorus straightway clapped their hands and said, “Ee-ow!” (εἶπεν ‘ἰαυοῖ’). In doing so, Aristophanes highlights the interjection as a particular component of theatrical conventions. Embedded in a tradition where lógos corresponds to word in action, the use of this lexical structure in Greek tragedy thus appears as a fundamental element for the functioning of this poetic genre. It is a refined strategy of enunciation that serves the tragic purposes of producing emotional effects through oralized speech. Without a denotative or descriptive function, but with a rich variation of possible meanings, it is pure mimetic performance, marked by the spontaneous expression of ineffable feelings. In this paper, we propose a discussion of the mimetic character of the interjection in tragedy—its phonetic ability to imitate reality—by examining its use in Aeschylus's Persians, a work considered “a great lament.” The goal is to understand the fundamentally sounding nature of the tragic discourse arrangement and highlight a unique Greek practice of using language and producing speech.
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