parabasis

American  

[puh-rab-uh-sis] / pəˈræb ə sɪs /

noun

• parabases
  plural

1. (in ancient Greek drama) a choral ode addressed to the audience, especially of comedy, and independent of the action of the play: usually following the agon and, in the earliest forms of comedy, serving often to end the play.

---

parabasis British  

/ pəˈræbəsɪs /

noun

1. (in classical Greek comedy) an address from the chorus to the audience

---

Other Word Forms

Noun Inflected Forms

• parabases
  plural

Etymology

Origin of parabasis

1810–20; < Greek parábasis a going aside, digression; see para- ¹, basis

Example Sentences

See Examples For:

parabasis parabases

Of the later plays of Aristophanes, three77 are without a parabasis, and in the last of those preserved to us which properly belongs to Middle comedy78 the chorus is quite insignificant.

From Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 8, Slice 6 "Dodwell" to "Drama" by Various

With the 'Ecclesiazusæ' it marks the transition to the Middle Comedy, there being no parabasis, and little of the exuberant verve of the older pieces.

From Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern — Volume 2 by Hamilton Wright Mabie

The mixed form of narrative and mono-drama lends itself to this as nothing else could: and so does the author's well-known, much discussed, and sometimes heartily abused habit of parabasis or soliloquy to the audience.

From Henry Esmond; The English Humourists; The Four Georges by George Saintsbury

The third period, down to 388 B.C., comprises two plays in which the transition to the character of the Middle Comedy is well marked, not merely by disuse of the parabasis, but by general self-restraint.

From Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 2, Slice 5 "Arculf" to "Armour, Philip" by Various

These four verses are here repeated from the parabasis of 'The Wasps,' produced 423 B.C., the year before this play.

From The Eleven Comedies, Volume 1 by Aristophanes

I have no particular objection to it; but those who object to Thackeray's parabases ought to think this is a still more objectionable thing.

From A History of the French Novel, Vol. 2 To the Close of the 19th Century by George Saintsbury

His digressions are not parabases of the kind which some people object to in Fielding and still more in Thackeray—addresses to the reader on points more or less intimately connected with the subject itself.

From A History of the French Novel, Vol. 2 To the Close of the 19th Century by George Saintsbury