DITHYRAMB

a choric poem, chant, or hymn of ancient Greece sung by revelers at the festival in honour of the god Dionysus. The form originated about the 7th century BC in the songs of banqueters under the leadership of a man who, according to Archilochus, was wit-stricken by the thunderbolt of wine. It was contrasted with the more sober paean, sung in honour of Apollo. The dithyramb began to achieve literary distinction about 600 BC, when the poet Arion composed works of this type, gave them names, and formally presented them at the Great Dionysia competitions at Corinth. These presentations consisted of a dithyrambic song accompanied by circular dances performed around the altar of Dionysus by choruses composed of 50 men and boys; the whole proceeding was accompanied by reed flutes and was led by the speaker of a prologue. By the end of the 6th century BC, the dithyramb was a fully recognized literary genre. Its most famous composer was Lasus of Hermione (b. c. 548), who is said to have been one of Pindar's teachers. The great age of the dithyramb was also the great age of Greek choral lyric poetry in general; Simonides of Ceos, Pindar, and Bacchylides all composed them. Of Simonides' and Pindar's dithyrambs, little is known; but two of Bacchylides' are complete, and there are considerable fragments of several others. Bacchylides' Ode 18 is unusual in that it contains a dialogue between a chorus and a soloist. This attempt to increase the dramatic interest of the narrative may explain why the classical dithyramb gave way before the more vivid methods of tragedy. From roughly 450 BC onward, dithyrambic poets employed ever-more-startling devices of language and music, until for ancient literary critics dithyrambic acquired the connotations of turgid and bombastic. True dithyrambs are rare in modern poetry, although John Dryden's Alexander's Feast (1697) may be said to bear a coincidental resemblance to the form. The term may also refer to any poem in an inspired irregular strain, or to a statement or piece of writing in an exalted impassioned style usually in praise of a particular subject.