tetralogy

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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]

The word "tetralogy" is not commonly used in the marketing of collections of works. "Quartet" is sometimes used, particularly for series of four books. An invented term quadrilogy has also been used for marketing series of movies, basing the prefix on Latin prefix quadri- instead of the Greek prefix. The Alien and Die Hard series have also been released in sets under the title The Alien Quadrilogy (the films for which the term was coined) and The Die Hard Quadrilogy.

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]}
• Terry Brooks's The Heritage of Shannara quartet^{[citation needed]}
• A. S. Byatt's Frederica Quartet (The Virgin in the Garden, Still Life, Babel Tower and A Whistling Woman)^{[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]}
• Lawrence Durrell's Alexandria Quartet^{[citation needed]}
• Ford Madox Ford's Parade's End^{[citation needed]}
• Maggie Furey's Artefacts of Power^{[citation needed]}}
• Thomas Harris's Hannibal Lecter quartet^{[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]}
• Yukio Mishima's The Sea of Fertility^{[citation needed]}
• Christopher Paolini's Inheritance Cycle^{[citation needed]}
• 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]}
• Paul Scott's Raj Quartet^{[citation needed]}
• William Shakespeare's sequence of history plays:

Major tetralogy^[5]: Richard II; Henry IV, Part 1; Henry IV, Part 2; Henry V

Minor tetralogy^[5]: Henry VI, Part 1; Henry VI, Part 2; Henry VI, Part 3; Richard III

• E. E. Smith's Skylark series^{[citation needed]}
• S. M. Stirling's Emberverse series (Dies the Fire, The Protector's War, A Meeting at Corvallis)^{[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

• A History of the English-Speaking Peoples by Winston Churchill^{[citation needed]}

See also

Look up Tetralogy in Wiktionary, the free dictionary.

• Sequel

References