ABSTRACT
The ancient view of the Chorus’s function is well summarized in Horace’s Ars Poetica: The Chorus must back the good and give sage counsel; must control the passionate and cherish those that fear to do evil; it must praise the thrifty meal, the blessings of justice, the laws, and Peace with her unbarred gates. It will respect confidences and implore heaven that prosperity may revisit the miserable and quit the proud.(Horace on the Art of Poetry, edited by Edward Henry Blakeney, 1928). In most tragedies from the Renaissance onwards, whether or not –as in Romeo and Juliet and Faustus –they have a nominal ‘Chorus’, the true function of the old Chorus is discharged by the characters who surround the tragic figure. Sometimes there is a particular commentator among these characters –Horatio perhaps, Enobarbus certainly.
