Part 5, Sections 23-26 Summary and Analysis

Part 5: The Immortal Word begins with a quote from Horace in the first century B.C. that the escaped word cannot be recalled and a quote that while some books are undeservedly forgotten, none are undeservedly remembered by W. H. Auden in 1962. Section 23: Dionysus the Twice-Born tells how Dionysus, god of drama, dance and music, was worshiped in a dithyramb written by Arion which was danced and sung by fifty men and boys at the annual festival to celebrate the god, and though the dithyramb lost its place in Athenian festivals by the fourth century B.C., its by-products continued to glorify Greece.

Section 24: The Birth of the Spectator: From Ritual to Drama describes man's slow discovery that he need not always be a participant as rituals celebrating the gods by re-enacting their feats turned into stage...