Note 134 — Chapter VII · DEDUCTION OF ART-FORMS

Cf. on the infectious influence of dramatic performances, Cahusac, La danse, i. pp. 166, 167; ii. pp. 61, 62; Jacobowski, Anfänge der Poesie, pp. 127-129; Tarde, “Foules et sectes,” in Revue des deux Mondes, vol. cxx. (1893), especially p. 368. It is scarcely necessary to point out to how great an extent the emotional conveyance by means of dramatic action must have been strengthened by the chorus, which, by its laughter or wailing, affords a kind of model expression to the spectator. Possibly, indeed, the Greek chorus developed from a ceremonial in which chorus and audience were not distinct but identical—a ritual of wailings or rejoicings provoked by the recital of a traditional story. This view, curiously in advance of his times, is suggested by Brown, an eighteenth century philosopher (History of the Rise of Poetry, pp. 126-128): “How came it to pass that in the more barbarous periods the number [of the chorus] should be so much greater? Manifestly because that rude age bordered on the savage times, when the whole audience had sympathised with the narrative actor, and became as one general choir.”