Deuteragonist | theater | Britannica (original) (raw)

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innovation by Aeschylus

• In Aeschylus: Dramatic and literary achievements
  …adding a second actor (the deuteragonist, or second actor) with whom the first could converse, Aeschylus vastly increased the drama’s possibilities for dialogue and dramatic tension and allowed more variety and freedom in plot construction. Although the dominance of the chorus in early tragedy is ultimately only hypothesis, it is…
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support of protagonist

• In protagonist
  …in a second actor, or deuteragonist, and presented the first dialogue between two characters. Aeschylus’ younger rival, Sophocles, then added a third actor, the tritagonist, and was able to write more complex, more natural dialogue. That there were only three actors did not limit the number of characters to three…
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