Thespis

Common card · No. 221898

Thespis (; Ancient Greek: Θέσπις; fl. 6th century BC) was an Athenian tragic poet and actor. He was born in the ancient city of Icarius (present-day Dionysos, Greece). According to certain Ancient Greek sources and especially Aristotle, he was the first person in Ancient Greece to be an actor playing a character in a play, instead of orating as oneself. In other sources, he is said to have pioneered the first principal actor and chorus in theater. He is often called the "Inventor of Tragedy". His name is the etymological origin of the word "thespian", meaning actor. Thespis was a singer of dithyrambs, songs about stories from mythology with choric refrains. He is credited with introducing a new style in which one singer or actor performed the words of individual characters in the stories, distinguishing between the characters with the aid of different masks. He is credited with inventing theatrical masks, made mostly out of linen. This new style was called tragedy, and Thespis was the most...

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