英语沙龙：希腊悲剧之父-埃斯库罗斯（在线收听）

Aeschylus：The Father of Greek Tragedy

Aeschylus was the first known dramatist to use morethan one character in his plays, and he thereforeinvented the concept of dialogue betweencharacters. Before Aeschylus, plays consisted of oneprotagonist and were narrated by the chorus.

Some plays had a chorus of only one actor, whileothers used a large group. Aeschylus' plays alsofeature a chorus, but the majority of the storiesare told through dialogue. Many typical dramaticconcepts, such as props, scenery, and costumes, also originated in Aeschylus' works. He alsoinvented the dramatic trilogy. His tragedies were performed in sequences of three playsstretched out over time. After each trilogy was concluded, he staged a comedy called a "satyrdrama".

In a typical satyr drama, the characters are mythological creatures and the chorus is a satyr, amischievous creature that is half-man, half-goat. The language and meter used by Aeschylusin his plays was the forerunner of blank verse, or unrhymed iambic pentameter.

Blank verse became the dominant poetic and dramatic style of the English literaryrenaissance, which occurred nearly 2 100 years after Aeschylus. Writers such as WilliamShakespeare, John Milton and Christopher Marlowe almost exclusively used blank verse intheir famous works. Alexandrine, another writing style, is also derived from Aeschylus' verse.