Work.
In passing from Aeschylus' life to his work, we have obviously far more trustworthy data, in the seven extant plays (with the fragments of more than seventy others), and particularly in the invaluable help of Aristotle's Poetics. The real importance of our poet in the development of the drama (see DRAMA: Greek) as compared with any of his three or four known predecessors--who are at best hardly more than names to us--is shown by the fact that Aristotle, in his brief review of the rise of tragedy (Poet. iv. 13), names no one before Aeschylus. He recognizes, it is true, a long process of growth, with several stages, from the dithyramb to the drama; and it is not difficult to see what these stages were. The first step was the addition to the old choric song of an interlude spoken, and in early days improvised, by the leader of the chorus (Poet. iv. 12). The next was the introduction of an actor (upokrites or ``answerer''), to reply to the leader; and thus we get dialogue added to recitation. The ``answerer'' was at first the poet himself (Ar. Rhet. iii. 1). This change is traditionally attributed to Thespis (536 B.C.), who is, however, not mentioned by Aristotle. The mask, to enable the actor to assume different parts, by whomsoever invented, was in regular use before Aeschylus' day. The third change was the enlarged range of subjects. The lyric dithyramb-tales were necessarily about Dionysus, and the interludes had, of course, to follow suit. Nothing in the world so tenaciously resists innovation as religious ceremony; and it is interesting to learn that the Athenian populace (then, as ever, eager for ``some new thing'') nevertheless opposed at first the introduction of other tales. But the innovators won; or other-wise there would have been no Attic drama.
In this way, then, to the original lyric song and dances in honour of Dionysus was added a spoken (but still metrical) interlude by the chorus-leader, and later a dialogue with one actor (at first the poet), whom the mask enabled to appear in more than one part.
But everything points to the fact that in the development of the drama Aeschylus was the decisive innovator. The two things that were important, when the 5th century began, if tragedy was to realize its possibilities, were (1) the disentanglement of the dialogue from its position as an interlude in an artistic and religious pageant that was primarily lyric; and (2) its general elevation of tone. Aeschylus, as we know on the express authority of Aristotle (Poet. iv. 13), achieved the first by the introduction of the second actor; and though he did not begin the second, he gave it the decisive impulse and consummation by the overwhelming effect of his serious thought, the stately splendour of his style, his high dramatic purpose, and the artistic grandeur and impressiveness of the construction and presentment of his tragedies.
As to the importance of the second actor no argument is needed. The essence of a play is dialogue; and a colloquy between the coryphaeus and a messenger (or, by aid of the mask, a series of messengers), as must have been the case when Aeschylus began, is in reality not dialogue in the dramatic sense at all, but rather narrative. The discussion, the persuasion, the instruction, the pleading, the contention---in short, the interacting personal influences of different characters on each other--are indispensable to anything that can be called a play, as we understand the word; and, without two ``personae dramatis'' at the least, the drama in the strict sense is clearly impossible. The number of actors was afterwards increased; but to Aeschylus are due the perception and the adoption of the essential step; and therefore, as was said above, he deserves in a very real sense to be called the founder of Athenian tragedy.
SupplicesPersae
The Seven against Thebes
Prometheus
Oresteia
