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.

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parabasis British  

/ pəˈræbəsɪs /

noun

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

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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

And there is a new element—perhaps suggested by the parabasis of ancient comedy, but, it may be, more directly by the peculiar method of Swift in A Tale of a Tub.

From The English Novel by Saintsbury, George

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

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

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 Saintsbury, George

They were also remarkable for the absence of the parabasis and chorus.

From Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 7, Slice 6 "Coucy-le-Château" to "Crocodile" by Various

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 Saintsbury, George

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 Saintsbury, George