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stichomythia

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“

Certainly there is nothing more telling in drama than a piece of "cut-and-thrust" dialogue after the fashion of the ancient "stichomythia."

—Play-Making A Manual of Craftsmanship

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Definitions (2)

American Heritage Dictionary (1)

noun An ancient Greek arrangement of dialogue in drama, poetry, and disputation in which single lines of verse or parts of lines are spoken by alternate speakers.

Century Dictionary (1)

GNU Webster's 1913

WordNet

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Examples (5)

(III. ii By far the greater part of the play is in blank verse, but in a few passages, particularly in certain dialogues tending to stichomythia, the verse is pointed, so to speak, with rime. — Pastoral Poetry and Pastoral Drama A Literary Inquiry, with Special Reference to the Pre-Restoration Stage in England
Certainly there is nothing more telling in drama than a piece of "cut-and-thrust" dialogue after the fashion of the ancient "stichomythia." — Play-Making A Manual of Craftsmanship
Pythias_ did before him -- of the Greek device of stichomythia. — The Growth of English Drama
The whole tract is, of course, mere romance; its only values are 1) the insight it give into ancient speculations about Homer; 2) a certain amount of definite information about the Cyclic poems; and 3) the epic fragments included in the stichomythia of the "Contest" proper, many of which -- did we possess the clue -- would have to be referred to poems of the Epic Cycle. — Hesiod, the Homeric Hymns, and Homerica
The author was well acquainted with classical drama, as may be seen in his use of stichomythia, amongst other things, and possibly in his preference for a Grecian story. — The Growth of English Drama

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Etymologies (2)

American Heritage Dictionary (1)

Greek stikhomūthiā, from stikhomūthein, to speak in alternating lines : stikhos, stich; see steigh- in Indo-European roots + mūthos, speech.

Century Dictionary (1)

from Greek στιχομυθία, dialogue in alternate lines, from στιχομυθεῖν, answer one another line by line: see stich and myth.

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/stɪkəˈmɪθiə/

by American Heritage

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