ABSTRACT
This chapter traces the sounds of non-lexical vocalization on the Greek dramatic stage from the croaks of frogs and farts of satyrs to the cries of tragic heroes. It argues that the more embodied, animalized and broken is a speaker’s utterance, or the less it is like language, the more endangered is this character, the more fragile his place in the world and the more the transience of that particular moment is stressed. Plato expresses horror in Republic and Laws at these uses of the mimetic, non-lexical voice, deeming them clownish at best and fatally corrupting at worst, but this chapter seeks out the counter-argument implicit in the use of such voiced sounds in Greek drama. What is gained when logos is lost?
