stichomythia , also: stichomythy

A critic has called that "the merriest and most congenial form imaginable" of stichomythia.

Adolf Gross concludes that stichomythia developed from choral responsion.

Particularly noticeable in this play is the use of stichomythia, a short, rhythmic exchange of words in equal balance.

The later plays also feature extensive use of stichomythia (i.e. a series of one-liners).

Modern theatre rarely uses verse, so any construct that depends on verse, such stichomythia, is also rare.

Stichomythia originated in Greek drama.

Where a form of stichomythia has been used, the characters involved are typically building subsequent lines on the ideas or metaphors of previous lines, rather than words.

When Judas says Jesus knows who will betray him, a passage of stichomythia (with a two-line interruption) follows:

The quarrel develops into a slanging match, which takes the form of stichomythia, a component of Greek tragedy in which the combatants take one line each.

In terms of character relationships, stichomythia can represent interactions as mundane as question-and-answer exchanges, or as tense as heated rapid-fire arguments.

At line 779, the conversation between Pataikos and his daughter turns into a typically tragic stichomythia in which the characters take turns speaking one line at a time.

He was fond of laments, the use of stichomythia and gnomic or sententious lines (often indicated in his published plays by the use of marginal quotation marks).

He uses highly developed metaphors, stichomythia, and in nine memorable words deploys both anaphora and asyndeton: "to die: to sleep- / To sleep, perchance to dream".

In "The Merchant of Venice", Shylock and Bassanio enter into an argument using stichomythia at 4.1.65-9, which "catches the dramatic tension of a quasi-forensic interrogation":

Instead he finds that the trends, within Ancient Greek aesthetics, toward agonistic expression, subtly in language, and love of symmetry, helped to give rise to stichomythia as a popular dialogue device.

The rapid-fire one-line-exchanges (stichomythia) between characters, so stilted in most translations, blaze here with intense hostility, especially in the deadly verbal duel of Creon with his son Haemon.

Senecan stichomythia, while ultimately derived from Athenian stichomythia (as Roman theatre is derived from Greek theatre generally) differs in several respects.

While the equal line lengths can create a sense of equality of voice between the characters, stichomythia can also feature one character silencing another with a vociferous rebuff, especially where one character's line interrupts the other's.

For another example from opera, the following passage from the libretto by Andrea Maffei for Giuseppe Verdi's I masnadieri has been called "musical stichomythia", though it does not contain repetition or antithesis:

It was called Loki Bound and was as classical as any Humanist could have desired, with Prologos, Parodos, Epeisodia, Stasima, Exodos, Stichomythia, and (of course) one passage in trochaic septenarii-with rhyme.

In the prose context of most film, stichomythia has been defined as a "witty exchange of one-liners" and associated with the film noir characters Jeff Bailey in Out of the Past, Sam Spade, and Philip Marlowe.

In terms of how stichomythia moves forward as a section of dialogue, the Ancient Greeks tended to favor subtle flavorings and reflavorings of grammatical particles, whereas Senecan (and by extension Renaissance) stichomythic passages often turned on verbal minutiae or "catchwords".

NOTE: STICHOMYTHIA In the course of their verbal duel, Richard and Anne will use that form of patterned speech Shakespeare probably learned from the works of the Roman playwright, Seneca, which were popular in his time.