Tetralogy
A tetralogy is a compound work that is made up of four (numerical prefix tetra-) distinct works, just as a trilogy is made up of three works.
The name comes from the Attic theater, in which a tetralogy was a group of three tragedies followed by a satyr play, all by one author, to be played in one sitting at the Dionysia as part of a competition.[1] Antiphon of Rhamnus, an orator, taught his students with Tetralogies, each one consisting of four speeches: the prosecutor's opening speech, the first speech for the defence, the prosecutor's reply, and the defendant's conclusion. Three of Antiphon's tetralogies survive.[2]
In more recent times, Shakespeare wrote two tetralogies, the first consisting of the three Henry VI plays and Richard III, and the second consisting of Richard II, the two Henry IV plays, and Henry V.[3] Richard Wagner's Der Ring des Nibelungen ("The Ring of the Nibelung" or "The Ring Cycle") is also referred to as a tetralogy.[4]
As an alternative to "tetralogy", "quartet" is sometimes used, particularly for series of four books. The term "quadrilogy", a nonce word basing the prefix on Latin prefix quadri- instead of the Greek prefix, and first recorded in 1865[5], has also been used for marketing series of movies, such as the Alien series and Die Hard series, [6] probably because, to the intended audiences, the Latin "quadri-" would bear more relation to the number 4 than the correct "tetra".
Examples
 |
Examples of works which have been described as tetralogies are as follows:
Literary works
In literature, the term tetralogy has been applied to series of novels, plays and poetry with four entries. These include the following:
- L. Frank Baum's Ozma of Oz, Dorothy and the Wizard in Oz, The Road to Oz, and The Emerald City of Oz.[citation needed]
- Jonathan Bayliss's Gloucesterman[citation needed]
- John Crowley's Aegypt[citation needed]
- Henry de Montherlant's Les Jeunes Filles[citation needed]
- Ted Dekker's The Circle Series (Black, Red, White, Green)[citation needed]
- Ford Madox Ford's Parade's End[citation needed]
- Maggie Furey's Artefacts of Power[citation needed]}
- Yaşar Kemal's İnce Memed tetralogy[citation needed]
- Sergei Lukyanenko's Watch series[citation needed]
- Thomas Mann's Joseph and His Brothers[citation needed]
- David Markson's Reader's Block, This Is Not a Novel, Vanishing Point, and The Last Novel[7]
- Yukio Mishima's The Sea of Fertility[citation needed]
- Christopher Paolini's Inheritance Cycle[8]
- Tamora Pierce's The Song of the Lioness[citation needed]
- Claude Royet-Journoud's Le Renversement, La Notion d'Obstacle, Les Objects contiennent l'infini, and Les Natures indivisibles (poetry published between 1972 and 1997)[citation needed]
- William Shakespeare's sequence of history plays:
- Major tetralogy[9]: Richard II; Henry IV, Part 1; Henry IV, Part 2; Henry V
- Minor tetralogy[9]: Henry VI, Part 1; Henry VI, Part 2; Henry VI, Part 3; Richard III
- E. E. Smith's Skylark series[citation needed]
- Harry Turtledove's Settling Accounts[citation needed]
- John Updike's Rabbit series (Rabbit, Run; Rabbit Redux; Rabbit is Rich, Rabbit at Rest) There is also (Rabbit Remembered), the fifth part of "Rabbit..." series.[citation needed]
- T. H. White's The Once and Future King[citation needed]
- Gene Wolfe's Book of the New Sun and Book of the Long Sun[citation needed]
Movies
Music
- Coheed and Cambria's The Amory Wars concept albums[citation needed]
- Richard Wagner's Der Ring des Nibelungen, a series of four epic music dramas[citation needed]
- Thrice's The Alchemy Index Vols. I & II and The Alchemy Index Vols. III & IV[citation needed]
Historical works
See also
References
- ^ Rush Rehm. Greek Tragic Theater. Routledge, 1994. Page 16.
- ^ C. M. Bowra. Landmarks in Greek Literature. Weidenfeld and Nicholson, 1966. Pages 236-7.
- ^ Victor L. Cahn. Shakespeare the playwright: a companion to the complete tragedies, histories, comedies, and romances. Greenwood, 1991.
- ^ Hans von Wolzogen. Guide to the music of Richard Wagner's tetralogy: The ring of the Nibelung. A thematic key. Translated by Nathan Haskell Dole. G. Schirmer, New York, 1895.
- ^ Simpson, J.A., and Weiner, E.S.C. (eds.) The Oxford English Dictionary. 2nd ed. 1989. Oxford. Clarendon Press. "quadri-"
- ^ http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=quadrilogy
- ^ Review: David Markson, The Last Novel Writes Susan Kleid in her review:
"The Last Novel is the fourth of four books (a quartet? a tetralogy?) that witness a creator's struggle with -- and against -- what he is creating. In the first of the four, Reader's Block, the narrator is referred to as "The Reader." In This Is Not a Novel, he's "The Writer." In Vanishing Point he's moved up to "Author,..."
- ^ [1]
- ^ a b Shakespeare in Performance: Film